The Fall of Terradox

by Craig A. Falconer

  The pair’s transport to Venus — a Karrier from the brand new K-3 fleet — took longer than expected to arrive.

  In the meantime, they ate a quick meal in Terradox Central Station’s deserted food court and looked out at the grassy valley which appeared significantly more expansive now that the gargantuan Ferrier had departed and left a large space beside the old Karrier.

  The stalls and kiosks which served real food to satisfy wealthy tourists were now unstaffed, leaving a familiar-looking vending machine as the pair’s only option. While Holly was wholly accustomed to dining on the convincingly realistic algae-based concoctions delivered by this kind of machine, Sakura was less enthused by the prospect.

  “I know the algae is safe,” she said, “but we were told for decades that this stuff was basically poison and that Rusev didn’t care as long as she could make money from it. I know it’s not exactly the biggest example we’ve had of finding out that something we’d believed for decades was a total lie, but, you know…”

  “Just eat it,” Holly said. “If you didn’t know it was algae before you tasted it, I swear you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Seriously; I had some fussy eaters when I was chaperoning people to the station, and they all came to like this stuff. Now, if you want to know what poison tastes like… just ask Rusev for some of her nutrition powder once we reach the station.” As Sakura laughed, Holly’s tastebuds retreated in self-defence at the mere thought of it.

  A short and somewhat refreshing period of faux normality ended after a few minutes when an automated announcement played through the speakers all around the food court, echoing throughout the empty cavern that was Terradox Central Station.

  The gist of the announcement was that the sky over Terradox was about to be transformed into a fantasy skyscape. Such displays occurred for a few minutes at the same time every evening, alternating between 28 distinct skyscapes on a rolling basis so that no guest ever saw the same one twice. Holly vaguely recalled a notice in the control bunker’s instructional materials which implored the reader to always warn others on Terradox before altering the skyscape in any way so as to avoid causing extreme disorientation. The importance of this was naturally amplified when the change was to be sudden and dramatic, as was the case now.

  Sakura and Holly both rose from their dining chairs and pressed their faces against the huge window before them to watch the imminent skyscape display.

  “Have you seen this before?” Sakura asked.

  “Never,” Holly said.

  What followed was a stunningly immersive scene as the entire sky transformed into a beautiful sunburst hue which slowly darkened to reveal several fantastical planets. One of these brilliantly illuminated planets vaguely resembled a more oceanic Earth while a much larger ringed planet inevitably conjured up thoughts of Saturn. The planets appeared enormous, as though viewed from their own nearby moons.

  Darkness in other areas of the sky was occasionally broken by passing comets, and the four-minute display culminated in a gigantic fireball appearing to come straight towards Terradox. Sakura flinched as this fireball reached its maximum size and proximity in the instant before the sky returned to normal, such was the convincingness of the display.

  Of course, the “normal” sky visible to everyone on Terradox was in itself an artificial projection. As that sky returned to view, Holly ponderously reflected that this was the greatest marvel of all.

  “That was amazing,” Sakura beamed.

  “The Karrier!” Holly replied even more excitedly as she saw their transport to the Venus station arriving outside from wherever on Terradox it had been stored.

  As the K-3 came to a halt next to the older K-2 which Holly had only ever known as “the Karrier”, the similarities and differences between the new and old variants were equally apparent. A cursory glance was enough to see both where the K-3’s inspiration had come from and also that it constituted a serious improvement on its predecessor.

  The same improved access to labour and materials on Earth which had enabled the construction of the Rusentra corporation’s long-planned Ferrier-class vessels, now used by the TMC, had likewise enabled the long-overdue refresh and expansion of the Karrier line. Holly had long looked forward to stepping inside a K-3 and experiencing this progress for herself.

  A uniformed man with greying hair exited the new Karrier and approached the entrance to Terradox Central Station. Holly and Sakura cleared their table before heading down to meet him.

  He introduced himself as Polo, their pilot, and revealed that he had been the captain of the Ferrier which had safely delivered them to Terradox earlier in the day.

  “Good to know we’re in safe hands,” Holly said, shaking his hand.

  “But, Miss Wood,” he continued with a charming smile, “when I introduce myself to you I should probably introduce myself firstly as the new record-holder for cumulative distance travelled.”

  She couldn’t help but laugh.

  “I know that Spaceman held the record for decades before you and Goran Vuletic took joint ownership of it, only for you to relinquish your share a few weeks later and then claim it back when you returned to Earth. I can assure you that I plan to follow in Spaceman’s giant footsteps as best I can, holding this record for decades rather than weeks.” He ended with a wink.

  After laughing for a few more seconds as they stepped outside into the dry-tasting evening air, Holly had a question for the jovial pilot: “Did they tell you why I’m leaving early?”

  “No,” Polo said, turning suddenly serious. “And I’m under strict instructions not to ask.”

  Holly gave a half-nod of understanding.

  “But whatever the reason is,” he said, upbeat once again, “let’s look at the positive: I bet you’d have jumped at the chance to leave so quickly the last time you were here.”

  Polo then picked up his pace, walking briskly towards the Karrier. This left Holly to muse over his last comment, a well-intentioned attempt to break the tension with humour which had only brought her unfocused qualms to an unhappy point: she really didn’t want to leave.

  “I’m worried they’re going to do something that destroys Terradox,” she said, bluntly sharing her concern out loud but making sure that only Sakura heard it.

  “Rusev wouldn’t do that,” Sakura said. “Who would? Morrison in his demonic prime, maybe, but no one else.”

  “I don’t mean on purpose. I mean collaterally. You know, to stop the other romosphere’s expansion while they still can.”

  Sakura put a gentle hand on Holly’s shoulder. “If that was the plan then they would have evacuated everyone, not just us. Or even if it was just a few high-ranking officials stationed here who wanted to save themselves… there’s no way they’d leave empty spaces on this Karrier. Terradox is safe, Holly. For now, at least.”

  “Yeah, probably,” Holly said, happy to concede a point she hoped to be wrong about.

  “Definitely,” Sakura insisted with raised eyebrows and a firm gaze, taking her hand from Holly’s shoulder as they neared the new Karrier’s entrance.

  Holly nodded passively.

  Momentarily alone on the valley’s surface as Sakura stepped inside, she then spoke under her breath: “Probably.”

  ten

  The new Karrier proved as luxurious on the inside as it looked impressive on the outside, particularly in contrast to the tired interior of the trusty old Karrier in which Holly had travelled so far and so often.

  She watched that old Karrier and its grassy valley shrink and ultimately fade into the romosphere’s terrain as the new Karrier ascended to ever-greater altitudes. The primary difference between this and her only previous departure was that, with no visual cloak in place to hide it, Terradox did not disappear from sight as her distance from it grew.

  One other considerable difference, aside from the lack of company besides Sakura, was that there was this time no opportunity to communicate en route with the Venus station. Though this alarmed Holly at f
irst it did not alarm Polo, who informed her that he was in contact with the station’s docking team but had been told very firmly that they were forbidden from passing on messages from his passengers and were unable to engage in conversation not directly related to the safe travel and docking of the Karrier itself.

  This seemingly pointless restriction frustrated Holly greatly. After ruminating for what felt like it must have been a good chunk of the 35-hour journey time, she groaned at the sight of a clock which told her that barely two hours had elapsed.

  With Sakura having somehow managed to fall asleep with no major difficulty, Holly had nothing else to do but think.

  Her mind, as had been its way in recent times, initially and stubbornly focused on negatives. Rather than considering possibilities or searching for solutions, she found herself ruefully picturing the smiling faces of young CeCe and DeeDee Bouchard, their parents, and all of the other innocent and obliviously excited guests of the Terradox Resort she had just been forced to leave behind.

  Is “forced” the right word?, she wondered. Or did I choose to leave them?

  This new thought did little to ease her mind, and the proceeding movement of her focus from those unsuspecting tourists to the rogue romosphere itself offered similarly little solace.

  Holly wandered the Karrier’s empty corridors, checking out its modernised sleeping quarters and emergency landers in an effort to bring up some relatively positive memories from her countless days and nights inside its predecessor. This worked to an extent, particularly when she entered the lander at the same end of the Karrier as the one the Harringtons had occupied four years earlier.

  They had survived against incredible odds, she thought. Indeed, Holly herself had kept them alive despite those odds.

  Whatever the precise nature and extent of the new threat, Holly now struggled to imagine how it could be graver than the situation she had found herself in back then. This positive perspective, however small it might have been and however actively she might have had to look for it, went a long way towards alleviating the physically manifesting dread she had been feeling since leaving Terradox.

  She soon lay down on a bed in the sleeping quarters analogous to those she knew so well from the old Karrier and tried again to fade off to sleep, hoping to pass some of the journey without having to think about anything.

  When Holly checked her clock again after rolling over and opening her eyes, she was pleased to see that almost seven dreamless hours had passed since she lay down. Better still, Sakura was now awake. Holly found her in the familiar looking utility room, gladly tucking into a plateful of spaghetti-shaped algae.

  “I’ll make yours,” Sakura said as Holly sat down. “This machine is cool as hell! What do you want?”

  The woman’s enthusiasm over the algae immediately made Holly think of Viola. “I think I’ll go for a vegetarian lasagne,” she said, remembering their old joke.

  Sakura looked confused. “But what difference does it make if it’s vegetarian? It’s all made of algae, isn’t it?”

  “That’s what I used to say,” Holly said, smiling slightly. Viola was now the only thing on her mind; so much so that she immediately brought up her name in telling Sakura about some of the people she was looking forward to seeing again on the station.

  Sakura’s expression fell slightly at this.

  “What’s wrong?” Holly asked, lost as to why.

  “I’ve been thinking the opposite,” Sakura said, looking down at the table. “About the people on Terradox. What if we were evacuated? What if the only reason they didn’t evacuate anyone else is that there would’ve been no way for them to get some other people on this Karrier without making everyone else wonder why they were being left behind? That would have caused a riot.”

  “But there must have been some space on the Ferrier,” Holly said, the rapidity of this conversational role reversal not lost on her. “They could have sent the tourists back to Earth.”

  Sakura didn’t look convinced. “All of them? Including staff there are more than twice as many people on Terradox as there are on the Ferrier that’s heading back to Earth, so it would’ve had to be at over triple its regular capacity. There’s no way it could have made it to Earth with so much unplanned extra cargo. No way.”

  Completing the role reversal, Holly placed a hand on top of Sakura’s. “The tourists are going to be fine,” she said, sounding more convinced than she really was as she looked warmly into Sakura’s eyes.

  “How can you know that?”

  “Because Grav told me he has a workable idea that Rusev doesn’t like,” Holly said, “and I’m going to do whatever it takes to change her mind.”

  eleven

  Holly had arrived at the Venus station more times than she could remember, but this approach felt like none before it.

  Pushed forward by a near-crushing sense of urgency and a heightened sense of purpose, she stood as near to the Karrier’s exit as possible while the docking procedures began. She remained there until the door finally opened. At this point she was joined by Sakura, who — far less accustomed to this kind of thing — had previously been sitting in the windowless utility room with her eyes closed during what she considered to be the highest-risk part of her hastily arranged journey.

  Unlike during Holly’s only prior venture into the station’s interior, there was no fanfare to greet her arrival. A group of Grav’s security officers were present, keenly taking her luggage as well as Sakura’s and offering an unnecessary escort to wherever Rusev had asked for them to be taken.

  “Is Grav around?” Holly asked, measuring her words to ensure she didn’t say too much to anyone who wasn’t already in the loop.

  “He is waiting for you,” one of the officers replied in a vaguely Russian-sounding accent. The officer was a handsome young man who had already introduced himself as Peter Ospanov and now walked ahead of his three colleagues, evidently in charge of Holly’s security detail despite clearly being the youngest among them. “He and Rusev are together in the briefing room. They have requested that I bring both of you to join them. I believe your pilot will join us when he is ready.”

  “Both of us?” Sakura asked. “Why do they need me for this?”

  “It is not my job to ask questions,” Peter said.

  “I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Holly added. She took a deep breath of the lavender-scented air, so immediately familiar that she struggled to believe how many years had passed since she last inhaled it. The main foyer’s high ceiling and expansive white interior brought back memories of how difficult it had been to leave this wonderful place behind.

  Aside from the lack of people milling around, the biggest difference from Holly’s last visit came in the shape of a large holographic statue of Yury ‘Spaceman’ Gardev, a monument which had been designed to greet the onlooker with direct eye-contact and a warm expression from whichever direction they approached. Holly’s initial thought was that the selfless old lion would have strongly disapproved of anyone’s time or any station resources being spent on such a memorial, but she knew that he served as an inspiration to many.

  In a world with too little of it, Yury had endured throughout his life as a symbol of good; a perfect man by no means, but a good one by any definition and any measure.

  “A great man,” Peter quietly said to Holly, noticing that she had slowed to look at the details of the statue. “I hope you know how highly he regarded you, Miss Wood.”

  “Just Holly,” she said, swallowing away the emotion that threatened to escape.

  While continuing to walk, Peter Ospanov outstretched his hand for a second and altogether less formal introduction. “In that case, I am just Peter.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, just Peter.”

  Peter laughed for a brief moment. “I can see why Viola is so fond of you, too; her sense of humour is also terrible.”

  “You know Viola?”

  “Very well. In fact, we will see her soon when we drop your th
ings in your dorm. It is right next to her father’s and I believe she is there at the moment.”

  “I’m still going to be in my old dorm?” Holly asked, her voice rising in unexpected delight. “They kept it empty?”

  Peter nodded and straightened his posture to its earlier professional position.

  Though it was well into the station’s evening and the majority of its inhabitants had long since retired to their spacious and comfortable dorms, Holly still encountered several members of the station’s research staff during the rest of the short walk to her familiar dorm. All appeared surprised to see her and, by the happy expressions on the faces of these workers and their children, she could tell that none knew of the developing threat caused by the rapidly expanding rogue romosphere.

  Sakura, meanwhile, walked much of the distance in slack-jawed wonder as she took in the awesome spectacle of the station just like everyone else inevitably did on their first visit. No pictures or videos could ever do its scale and splendour justice, as Sakura had just become the latest to find out.

  For a brief moment during the final steps towards the residential division which housed both the Harringtons’ dorm and her own, Holly’s mind was focused solely on the imminent reunion.

  Peter Ospanov encouraged Holly, Sakura and his three colleagues to stand out of view from the Harringtons’ door while he knocked, so that Viola wouldn’t suspect anything until Holly jumped out to surprise her.

  Holly peeked carefully around the corner as Robert Harrington answered the door. His once slightly greying hair had settled into a rather fetching salt-and-pepper style, as had his unexpectedly full beard.

  “Peter,” he said.

  “Mr Harrington.”

  “Are you coming in?”

  “No, sir. I have a delivery for Viola.”

  Robert looked understandably confused. “What kind of delivery?”