“Am I forgetting something?” O’sihn inquired, after instructing Clara to pass the landing precedence to each member of the landing team.
“No, Captain.”
“Carry on, then.”
Clara was now last in the list, right after Laida. She turned around, keeping her eyes out of O’sihn’s censuring sight, and walked away. Her anxiety to see Duncan had worked against her. O’sihn was always pressing his team to leave personal interests behind, in the service. Putting herself down second in the list—even before the X.O.—had given the captain sufficient evidence of her strong emotional motivations.
A tenuous external glow made Clara focus back on her instruments. The sunlight was becoming visible, exposing narrow icy walls. Above, the water surface appeared undisturbed. Clara was even able to spot some clouds beyond it. Soon afterwards, the capsule emerged in the middle of a liquid crater, sending forth short-crested ripples in every direction. The icy shore was gradually reflecting the incoming wavelets, transforming the circularly undulated surface into a shimmering crystal of random beauty.
The top of the capsule was immediately jettisoned. Clara squinted at the glistening scenery. Deploying a small retractable paddle, she began rowing towards one side of the pond, cutting through the thin film of ice that had already began to crystallize here and there.
About two hundred yards away, a huge helicopter was already waiting, its engines revving. The cargo ramp opened down to the ice, and a soldier jumped out of the vehicle. After scouting the landing site with his binoculars, he turned his head confidently towards the landing party inside the aircraft. Five more troopers stepped out.
Clara looked at them, hoping to identify somebody from the Realitian team, but she could not. A few seconds later, two other individuals stepped out. One of them looked around and waved at her. It was O’sihn, and Duncan was standing beside him.
Clara started running towards the helicopter when the Australitian soldier and his five troopers began to walk out to meet her. She immediately slowed down, trying to look composed. “Lieutenant Commander Clara, Veritas Marine Corps in commission for Realitas Royal Navy, sir,” she said, and saluted.102
“Colonel Ber-Meglacontl from the United Republics of the Austral Continent. Welcome to Aquaelight, Lieutenant Commander.”
“Colonel.”
O’sihn stepped forward.
“Lieutenant Commander Clara, reporting for duty, Captain.” Clara saluted again. “Trajectory and landing as planned; nothing to report, sir.”
“As you were, Sub Commander.”
“Sir.”
“Lieutenant Dahncion,” O’sihn said, “would you please help the Lieutenant Commander with her equipment?”
“Most certainly, Captain.”
Duncan approached Clara, and they started walking towards the capsule. After a few steps, Duncan looked back. Nobody seemed particularly interested in them.
“May I still call you Clara, Lieutenant Commander?”
Clara smiled blissfully. “I’ll always be Clara to you, Dahncion. How have you been all this time?”
“Good, but tell me about yourself.”
“I missed you.”
“I’m so glad you are here,” Duncan said, his eyes drifting towards the landing pod ahead.
“So, what about these?” Clara asked, pointing at Duncan’s fledgling lieutenant stripes.
“Well, the first thing O’sihn told me when he arrived yesterday was that a dispatch from headquarters had been received last week, whereby the Royal Council had promoted me to the rank of Lieutenant—in commission. When I get back to Realitas, I can get a regular status by taking the officer training program at the Realitas Naval Academy.”103
“Congratulations, Dahncion. I’m really happy for you.” By then, they had reached the capsule.
“How can I help you?” Duncan asked.
“I have very few things. I think I can carry them all. I guess O’sihn sent you along so that we could talk a bit,” Clara said, and smiled.
Right at that moment, a violent burst of white light, coming from behind the horizon, shot two crisp human silhouettes over the icy ground. It lasted a fraction of a second, but it was bright enough to make Clara and Duncan instinctively cover their eyes—after the flash had vanished.
“What was that?” Clara stammered.
“I don’t know.” Duncan headed back towards the helicopter. Clara quickly picked up her equipment and started running after him.
Back at the aircraft, Clara and Duncan found everybody gathered on the flight deck.
“I can’t make contact with headquarters,” Lieutenant Lyn-Tretl said. A bear-like figure, with colonel stripes, stood by the communications officer. “Keep trying.”
Only static came through the speakers.
“Forget about Austral City,” the colonel grumbled with growing impatience. “Try Base Admiral Li-Poteklatl.”
“What channel, sir?”
“Any channel.”
Tretl moved the dial from one end to the other, unable to tune in on any frequency. An eerie white noise was all that would come through the speakers.
“Something’s very wrong out there,” Tretl blurted. “I can’t pick up any frequency at all.”
“Excuse me, Colonel.”
Colonel Ber-Meglacontl turned back. “Sergeant?”
“I’ve finished checking what you asked for, sir,” Sergeant Pecotl said discreetly.
The colonel looked at O’sihn confidently, implying the foreign military team could be trusted.
“It was a nuclear discharge, sir.”
Meglacontl kept his eyes on the sergeant for a second or two. “Magnitude?”
“Still undetermined, sir. But no less than ten megatons.”
“Coordinates?”
“The computer is working on that right now.”
“Give me what you already have, Sergeant.”
Pecotl rushed to his panel and started tapping on his keyboard. A set of figures popped up in luminous green letters on a black screen. “We should wait a few more minutes for a more accurate fix on the emission, sir.”
The colonel leaned on the table in front of the display. The coordinate readings were flashing in sharp square figures.
“This is just a preliminary estimate, sir,” Pecotl insisted.
Meglacontl put on his dark glasses and turned to a porthole. He stood there in silence. The slow revving of the engines became the dominant sound in the cockpit.
Discreetly, Duncan approached the sergeant and pointed at the monitor, with an inquiring look.
“Austral City,” Pecotl whispered, with a nervous twitch of his head.
Meglacontl kept his eyes fixed on the horizon, immersed in silence.
Clara watched Meglacontl as he left the flight deck. She turned to Duncan, but he did not pay any attention to her. Clara understood very well the devastating implications of what had just taken place. The odds of anybody in the city having survived such an attack were practically non-existent.
Duncan finally gasped a single word: “Erina . . .”
Clara turned to him, but he did not see her at all. She had never heard that word before. However, in her heart, Clara clearly perceived that the word was more than that. It was a name, the name of a woman, and not just any woman—at least not for Duncan.
55.
“A soda, ma’am?”
“No, thank you.”
“You, sir?”
Duncan shook his head politely.
“Enjoy the flight.” The flight attendant smiled briefly and turned to another row of seats.
Duncan had been gazing through the window on his left from the moment the airplane had taken off. Peeping over his shoulder, Clara was now doing the same, though Duncan did not seem much aware of her.
Since Clara had arrived at Aquaelight two days before, she had found a quite different Dahncion from the one she thought she knew. He was absent-minded and barely talked.
“This is the first
time I’ve ever flown this way,” Clara commented. “I’ve flown in many vehicles, but never in an airplane.”
Duncan blinked his eyes, and turned slightly to her. “Hum . . . yes, I expected some long weary trip by helicopter.”
Clara nodded. “In a way, we are lucky that Base Pan-Togletetl is more than two thousand miles away.”
“I guess so,” Duncan answered, his gaze wandering somewhere outside, through the window.
All the members of the Realitian team were at that moment flying towards the same naval base, from where they would depart for their next mission. For security reasons, they had been assigned in pairs to different flights.
“This first-class flight was a nice gesture from Madam President,” Clara said.
“Uh-huh,” Duncan muttered, keeping his attention outside the airplane.
Clara’s endeavor to start a conversation had not been successful so far. Still, she felt it was time to try to do something about Duncan’s strange behavior and obvious depression. “I’m very sorry about Erina, Dahncion,” she said, with a compassionate expression.
Duncan turned to Clara with haunted eyes. “How do you—?”
“We’ve all heard about Erina from Earth,” Clara explained.104 “Everybody who met her agrees she was a very intelligent and attractive person.”
“I should’ve mentioned her from the very beginning. I mean . . .” Duncan shook his head.
“Never mind,” Clara said gently. “What happened was terrible. You don’t have to talk about her.”
Duncan leaned back in his seat and sighed, glancing upwards. “Erina was a wonderful woman. I learned to respect her greatly. We shared many views and many things, even though we came from very different places.”
“I’m truly sorry, Dahncion. I am sure I would’ve had a lot to learn from her myself.” Clara’s true empathy was reflected in the beauty of her simple eyes.
Putting one hand on top of Clara’s, Duncan gave her a small but warm smile.
A sign above the cockpit door went on. Duncan turned to his window and beckoned Clara to do the same. A handsome display of intermittent lights, from Admiral Pan-Togletetl airport105, was signaling the airplane its landing track.
56.
Clara and Duncan were among the last to leave the airplane. Through a window of the jetway that connected to the airport, Clara glimpsed snowflakes being carried away by a light icy wind. As soon as they stepped off the jetway, a woman emerged from a large group of people waiting to board another airplane.
“Dahncion!” She threw herself into his arms.
Duncan’s face was suddenly filled with a strange mixture of blissfulness and astonishment. The woman gazed up at him while still holding onto him.
“How . . . I mean . . .” Duncan stuttered, shaking his head.
“I left the city as soon as I’d learned about your sudden trip.” Erina grasped Duncan again. She looked tired and distressed. “That horrible flash . . .”
“It’s okay, Erina, it’s all over now.” Duncan gently brushed her hair from her eyes.
“You have no idea how difficult it was to track you down. The whole country is upside down.”
As they continued talking, Clara discreetly immersed herself into the crowd. She had to struggle through it until reaching one end of a long corridor. She glimpsed a sign and went on quickly to an elevator that went down to the luggage area. It was very spacious, with Clara as its only occupant. The luggage bay was ten levels below.106
During the descent, Clara kept her gaze down, her hair gradually sliding forward over her face. She closed her eyes with a subtle moan. Clara felt very lonely, her feelings somehow magnified by the large empty space. She was suddenly coping with warring emotions. On one hand, the woman, whose death had so much changed Duncan’s character, was alive. On the other hand, Clara had just witnessed a very visible and intense exchange of emotions between Duncan and Erina, which had gone way beyond the circumstances, however extraordinary. The scene had darkened many of her dreams, and her heart was now tainted with a perception of betrayal and the notion that she had only herself to blame for all she was feeling.
_______________
88 Both Duncan and Erina looked very different from the natives, since there were no humans on that planet. However, Australitians were familiar with occasional representatives from the Realdom, who would be wearing distinctive clothes provided by the Austral Union government. As a result, Duncan and Erina were not bothered by the Australitians, beyond curious looks and occasional polite questions that would often give way to friendly conversations.
89 Aromatic beverage prepared with the leaves of a tree native to Veritas.
90 Clara had recently been included in the list of qualified officers for chief of the watch assignments. Note that in times of war, watches would be covered by any qualified officer except for the T.O., the X.O., and the Captain.
91 Small spy cargo ship.
92 She actually said “white light,” which would not make much sense in our culture.
93 Light blue sugar-like substance refined from twees canes.
94 A planet that, for a long time, had been under the Establishment’s control.
95 Lieutenant Commander Victor had been temporarily assigned to the Intrepid after Duncan had left with Foxso’l. Clara and Victor had served together in a previous mission, two years prior.
96 After their lightning-bug collection “contest”.
97 They emit a pleasing smell, not producing smoke, only a tenuous vapor. Sweektoclots were popular mainly among individuals of bear-type species. They came in many brands, for males, females, and even for children, although they were much more popular among adults.
98 A Gravitational Geo Fixer was a device designed to compute the position of the user on the surface of any planet or planetoid, or in its interior, based on the gravitational waves generated by the motions of nearby stars of known trajectories. These trajectories would have to be pre-computed by the mother (space) ship and passed to the G.G.F. when users were exploring unknown areas of space.
99 All members of the Intrepid assigned to landing operations, including Duncan, had received landing training for weeks on board the ship’s simulators for this type of vehicle.
100 Vehicles that landed inside the ice had never been used (in a real mission) before Duncan’s landing in Aquaelight.
101 With a thin, solid external layer rich in protein, yems are peculiar fruits produced by some litics.
102 The Realdom’s military salute for bipedal and some other species consisted of placing the right palm on the chest for about half a second, keeping the hand in a straight line with the arm and perpendicular to the uniform.
103 In times of war, an officer with a commission status could still be promoted. That was the case in the Realitas Royal Navy, although not in all Realdom navies.
104 She, and the rest of the team, had heard about Erina from O’sihn and from the Australitian intelligence officers. O’sihn had arrived to the planet one day before the rest. During that time, Duncan had explained to him in detail all the events associated with Erina.
105 The military airport had a large civilian section.
106 The airport was on top of a hill, but the luggage area was far below, allowing for an easy access to public transportation, which included a metro station.
CHAPTER 10
Aquaelight
57.
It was not that the room was more comfortable than anywhere else onboard the submarine, rather that it was the most private spot on the vessel. Captain Ber-Gueelmietl had kindly offered his own quarters as a conference room. The meeting had started a few minutes before. “By then, the submarine will have closed distances to about six lonamies107 from Blue Cliffs.” O’sihn marked the spot with a pointer on an Australitian chart neatly stuck on a bulkhead with classical Australitian adhesive tape. “Three hours later, the third and last group will be launched.
“It is at this point that Lieutenant Comm
ander Clara’s platoon number three will start its seal-navigation. On reaching the beach, the team will proceed to climb the cliff by means of basic training equipment alone.” O’sihn looked at Clara and continued. “Your first landmark: this stream course,” O’sihn strained to make out the tiny characters on the chart, printed with Realitian characters by Australitian Intel, “Keteketl river, which falls into the sea over this ridge, right here.
“Over here,” O’sihn pointed at a different site, “on top of,” he paused to try to get the right pronunciation, “Cieventetl mount, you’ll reach the birth of the Keteketl, the selected location where Lieutenant Dahncion will launch the environmental restoration.” The captain looked at Duncan, who nodded in agreement.
“Your assignment, Lieutenant Commander Clara, is to make sure that Lieutenant Dahncion and his equipment are there before you receive the target-destroyed signal from platoon number two. That would indicate that a key target, the telecommunications complex by the temple construction that is behind Lake Huatepetl, has been destroyed.”
“What are my time margins, captain?” Clara asked.
“Once you receive the signal,” O’sihn continued, “platoon number two will have less than ten minutes of estimated safety, whereas platoon number one, only eight more. If the restoration is not initialized within eight minutes after receiving the signal, platoons one and two will be exposed to heavy enemy forces. Should that happen, our chances of returning back to this submarine would drastically decline. We must carry out this operation right on schedule.”
“It will be so, Captain,” Clara asserted with confidence.
Duncan subtly rolled his eyes (annoyed with Clara’s optimism).
“I want all of you to know,” O’sihn continued, “that this operation has been a very controversial and thoroughly reassessed tactical sub-procedure at Realitas Headquarters. We all know what we are getting ourselves into. Still, this course of action seems to have the best chances of success.
Reality: The Struggle for Sternessence Page 19