Human Starpilots

by F Stephan

  Heikert smiled and took a long look at Brian. Then he typed a few commands on his console. “Good question. I have changed your habilitation. Your bracelet will let you access section five in the star chamber. You will have to figure out the equipment by yourself, as it reacts differently to all of us. Now that the question is out, I want you to get to the bottom of it and bring me back answers. This is extra work that won’t help you graduate. At least not directly. So, do not use more than two hours a week on this. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.” The answer left him even more puzzled. This was the first time one of the teachers had deviated from the official progression and, even weirder, the first time Heikert had smiled. “And sir?”

  “Continue.”

  “Could we, in hyperspace, not follow the weakest line? We punch through the envelope, but once we are through, could we do more?”

  “Such as?”

  “Follow another line? Move up the gradient?”

  “You ask an interesting question. But one thing at a time. Once you have solved your first homework, we will work on this.” He made a gesture and the question was integrated in Brian’s file. With that, he dismissed his student. “Now, send you colleague in.”

  Brian felt better than usual. If he hadn’t had an explicit answer, at least he had paths to explore for the coming days. When he left the room, he had his thumb up for Li Bao, who waited on the bench. She smiled back and rose to enter.

  Brian hurried out as soon as the door closed. Everyone would now be gathered at Detram and Myirt.

  17 Brian

  Nerm had found them in the student room and had delivered the message without a word. Tasha had opened the letter, read it, and given it in silence to Emily. She handed it over to Brian: “Tasha, please join me at the address below as soon as you have this message. Thank you. Don Mariano Della Vega.” Brian’s bracelet blipped announcing a message. He called the 3-D reader to show it for his eyes only and saw a single line. “All your homework for tomorrow has been canceled. Master Reinkel. Dean.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that the others had identical messages. Their sudden focus had drawn the attention of the other students, and a few, like Illoma or Shanak, rose to join them. But when they saw them leave all together, still without a word, no one followed. For once, Sonter stayed silent.

  They hadn’t enough coin to pay the transport fare. So, they walked from the university to the small restaurant on the east side of the city. It was early evening in fall, and the temperature was now cooler. A crowd had filled the street when the sun had declined. Still in fall, no one was out during most of the day unless absolutely required. Tables had been set up outside restaurant everywhere. Many were playing card games. In passing, Brian stole a glance at them. They were large hexagonal cards with different characters. One struck him. It was a pilot with a cockpit behind him, like the simulators, but the drawing was old, dated.

  “This is called the Old Game and it supposed to date back from the Ancients,” said Emily.

  “You saw the pilot?”

  “Yes. I had heard of the Game but I will bet that the card was drawn before the academy was reopened by Federation forces.”

  Sweat beads were rolling down their faces by the time they arrived. The restaurant was small and old, in the basement of a large apartment building, with simple furniture. It was a cantina for industrial workers of the area. The owner looked at his watch and welcomed them with a cheerful “Right when he said you would arrive. He is a seer, you know that. He’s in the back. Go and join him.” They nodded in ascent and moved among the crowded tables to reach a second room. “Tonight is myirt pie. One piece each with our special brew,” commented the waiter Addel. The restaurant was empty, save for the ambassador and his assistant, calm but intense in the background. Eight dishes were set around the table, even if the message had only been sent to Tasha.

  “Hello and welcome, my dears. Let’s sit all together and share the news. The ship Yesanewworld crossed the solar system a month ago, and we just received its data dump.” They sat, and he faced Tasha. “There is no gentle way to tell this. I am deeply sorry.” Mathias pulled a chair for Tasha and she sat. The other students remained standing around in a protective half circle. “A month ago, the Baikal Complex was flash flooded when the main dam over the lake broke. The erosion due to the current weather conditions had apparently been underestimated. The complex was flooded within three hours, and the whole province was flooded in the next twenty hours.”

  Tears were glistening in the eyes of tall, dark-haired girl. “What happened to my parents? To Ilya? And to everyone?” Ilya was her little brother. They had all seen him in the amulet around her neck.

  “Your family was evacuated in the second convoy. There were three convoys, and each included two Spetsnatz units in full gear. They had managed to cross half the province when the tundra turned into mud and blocked their passage. They had to push into the Deadlands.” Li Bao and Leopold hissed at the name. Tasha turned her head toward them. “We do also have those nuclear wastelands in our countries, you know,” Li Bao said. “You aren’t the only one where people played with warheads. So they lost radio contact in there? How bad are those Deadlands?” she continued in a soft but adamant voice.

  “Yes. The contact was lost. The president of United Organization and the Federation Envoy both authorized an orbit flight to get them as soon as they regained contact. The first laborer allocated all local resources for the rescue.” Orbit flight had been restricted to the bare minimum for the last twenty years in the last global-warming-reduction effort. Brian noted that the decision had required the approval of the envoy. Why couldn’t the president decide alone on this?

  “The signal for two of the convoys was reacquired by a tracking satellite five days later at 8:03 UT. The rescue mission was off Space Station 1 at 8:24 UT and braked for atmospheric reentry at 9:59 UT.”

  “Only one shuttle?” interjected Emily.

  “No, another rescue party with two airplanes left from Novossibirsk at 10:45. The shuttle landed at 11:47 UT at Cheremkhovo Airport and the airplanes thirty minutes later. Two convoys were waiting for them there but were besieged at that time by tigroids.”

  “Tigroids?” asked Leopold.

  “Genetically modified tigers. We reintroduced them in the Urals one hundred years before to limit the game reproduction that came with the global warming. But then there was the nuclear blast in the Deadlands during the New Union, and the beasts evolved further than what was imagined initially. They are now one of the reasons for the exclusion zone, large, fierce, and intelligent creatures who work in bands,” answered Tasha with her usual accuracy. “And the third convoy?”

  Don Mariano shook his head. “We’ve had no news of it. The beasts were trapped between the flood from the Baikal to the east and the usual burning steppes to the north and west. They may have found it first. Anyway,” sighed the ambassador, “your mother and brother were safely evacuated in the shuttle.” Brian closed his eyes, knowing what had to follow and refusing to hear it. “Your father was manning the north barricade that controlled the access to the runway. He wouldn’t leave. And he, the complete two Spetsnatz units, and another group of men secured the escape for three hundred women and children and around forty wounded, both in the shuttle and the airplanes. No one, Spetsnatz or not, from that barricade, escaped,” trailed the ambassador.

  Tasha was now openly weeping in Leopold’s protective arms. One by one, they put their arms around her while she sobbed. Mathias moved then to give each of them his or her own datapack with the news brought by the Yesanewworld. After a while, Tasha gathered herself and began to talk to Don Mariano in hushed tones. Tasha had grown up in a complex, and she knew most of everyone in the Baikal compound there, including most of the Spetsnatz. This was a small society with a third of the economic and industrial leaders of the Reborn Russia grouped together. She was checking on each person she knew there. Behind the ambassador, Mathias
was directly connected to his console, retrieving data after data for her from the dump.

  Brian feared his datapack but was soon relieved by the news from his parents. They lived thoroughly bored but in luxury in the Wyoming Secure Complex. The modest plant worker and nurse were so much better in this new life they never complained. And they knew the fate of Li Bao’s parents, fallen in the first “pilot riot” when the crowd got mad. They wouldn’t go back to Chicago and their rough neighborhood. His older sister was rising in her career. He smiled at the picture of the bright and strong girl, looking at all she had accomplished. She wasn’t very beautiful, in that world where appearances were a must, but she was strong and bright and her brother had left Earth to be a pilot. She could play dirtier than any of her opponents and reach more dreams than they could think of. That made her into a devastating force in the corporate world.

  Sometime later, the waiter brought the rich pie, the house specialty, and like a dam breaking, the discussion began.

  “So, what’s the situation?” began Willfried.

  The ambassador looked at him, clearly hesitant to tell the news, but finally plunged.

  “This is very bad. The summer riots have been quite strong in all major cities, including Geneva, and the food is scarce this year as in the last. With the violence and the new sicknesses, the population is now back below seven billion. At this rate, within thirty years, we will repeal the birth-control laws.”

  There were sharp intakes of breath all around. At the middle of the twenty first century, there had been nine billion inhabitants on the planet.

  “How is climate control?” asked Emily, diverting attention.

  “Water is still rising due to ice melt in the poles and will need some time to fall back again unless we manage to buy or build more CO2 treatment plants. Permafrost melt has increased yet again. Now, Kamchatka is a full island.”

  “And the technology transfer, are we getting somewhere?” interjected Leopold, looking for good news somewhere.

  “Better in that front. We are slowly reducing pollutants and waste in many countries. It seems there are hopes of reclaiming even the Black Sea.” The Black Sea, locked between Europe, Russia, and Asia, had become, over the last fifty years, a vast poisonous mud pool.

  “Our main issue is that it takes time to build those capacities on our own. Ideally, we would need the wonder devices from the Ancient but for that we need to convince the Federation to send them to us, instead of others”.

  Li Bao sighed. “This is what I came here for. But this is far more difficult than I thought it would be”.

  “And I thought you had come for the free beer?” Leopold’s tone was falsely serious before he laughed.

  Li Bao smiled back at him. “No, that was Willfried”. The latter raised his mug of Zalam in salute.

  Don Mariano coughed. ”We also need to hire more scientists and engineers to boost our work with the DataDump. Otherwise, we will also need a few centuries.” The DataDump was the carrot with which the Federation had bought Earth. All information existing in the Federation had been delivered after the first contact to Earth and had been updated since with each passing ship. But having all information accessible yet unindexed was useless until they learned how to use it better.

  “Clearly, we did not understand how long it would take us to map this content, and, in some fields, build the necessary expertise to use it.” His voice took a subdued tone. “I am meeting everyone here on Adheek, and I’m exploring every option I can find to gain more time.”

  Emily sighed. “But you are having trouble finding any options until we graduate; isn’t that it? After that Earth will become bankable, a part of the trade structure, and the Federation will increase this dole we are currently on, which will allow us to buy more equipment or hire scientists. Is that right?”

  The ambassador met steadily her green, fiery glare, and after a long while, he was the one who lowered his eyes. “Yes. You are right. As of now, we don’t have much bargaining capacity. Now, please, remember that nobody knows how much time Earth has. Leopold send me word of the two planets Kirthan and Filb, which went into systematic environmental collapse. Mathias investigates in the dump all he can find about them.” Mathias behind him nodded unconsciously in assent. He had been, from what Brian knew, one of the best data hackers on Earth, and Brian trusted him to find whatever he could on those disasters.

  “Based on what I have found on them and on projections I ran, we should have enough time. It is close but enough,” the hacker repeated as if to convince himself.

  The six students looked at each other for a long time before they picked up again on their meal. They were in trouble. If they rushed too much and failed, they would lose all chances. If they didn’t rush enough, they would lose also. They walked a thin line. As they left the restaurant, having explored all current options for Earth on Adheek, the sun rose over the city.

  18 Brian

  Brian arrived, running into the dean’s office. He had been in the star chamber, working out the different controls, when the summons had arrived. With the tower simulator, this was the most distant room in the entire building, and he had run all the way. What did Master Reinkel want? As soon as he reached the door, it opened.

  “Thank you for joining me. Please have a seat.”

  Brian had never been in the office and took half a second to take in the whole room, strict and efficient. He sat, palms sweating, in front of the dean.

  “Your whole promotion is not making any new progress on the simulator. So, the council has decided, and you will all go tomorrow to the medical center after breakfast, and we will inject you a first batch of nanites. But before that, we need to talk.” Brian cringed at the words. “Have you been briefed about the injection?” continued the teacher in a neutral, businesslike, tone.

  “Yes. Before we left Earth, Nashiz’al’Naram, the envoy, gave us a speech about this. But he didn’t talk about nanites. Only about a drug.”

  “The honored envoy comes from Alkath and the Core Federation World has a specific approach on this. It used to be a kind of shamanic drug for them. If you visit the planet, you will feel the magic it represents for them. I prefer to call it by its true name. What do you remember from his talk?”

  There was no information about this in the DataDump, but they had all committed the speech to their memory.

  “Over the next two years, you will inject us with four progressive drugs to increase our speed and capacity, which will allow us to fly. We will need to give our formal consent at that time. We have the choice for each of them until the last minute.”

  “When we say it will allow you to fly, you have tested for yourself that you cannot pilot under current conditions. The best of you blow their ship one time in two. Nanites will help you gain the extraspeed you need”.

  Brian nodded in understanding. Sonter had been trained by his father since his childhood. If he couldn’t do better than one time in two after ten years, they were no way they would improve enough.

  “Do you understand that when I told you, a few minutes ago, about the injection, this confirmed a new status for you and acquired for your planet an increase in the Federation Development Fund? This increase is permanent, whether you accept the injection or not.”

  Brian nodded. His bracelet was blinking with new messages. Probably the official notifications.

  “I don’t know, sir, if that’s not even scarier. Why is the Federation offering so much? Why so much effort just to let us say yes or no?” Master Heikert had a heavy voice when he answered.

  “Once given, the operation cannot be reversed. Its results are unpredictable. You may die in the first few days or a bit later, because no one knows how our organism will adapt to the nanites. And those deaths are not pleasant.”

  “If this is so dangerous, why these injections?”

  “Because there is no other way. You have faced the simulations. You have seen how you, and even your bright Emily, destroy a starship one t
ime out of three. So, if we want to connect humanity together, we need reliable pilots, and we need to take risks.”

  “This is a hard choice.” Brian had a sudden insight. “Is it why the Ancients talk in the Flight Handbook of chosen Elite?”

  “We are not certain but we believe so. If you succeed, you will become one of the few individuals who can pilot a ship when it crosses hyperspace. It is an incredible experience. But to live it, you must take incredible risks. We are losing students every year to the injections. This is why the screening was so hard and why you will be provided a real choice.”

  “But what if I had pressure back home?”

  “The Federation is monitoring all your communications,” Reinkel said. Brian grimaced. “But if you were to tell me that a pressure is exerted on someone dear back home, we would extract that person and put her under Federation protection before you were allowed to make the choice.” Brian swallowed. The dean was dead serious, and from what he knew, the small contingent of marines on Earth had that capacity. “Are you facing such a situation?”

  “No, sir; we have no pressure from home. Only the urgency of our planet’s weather.”

  “This is something else. We all come from different worlds, and we take them with us wherever we go. Now, and until you choose, your communications outside of the academy have been blocked.”

  “And Don Mariano?”

  “He is aware of the situation and will be updated minute by minute.”

  “What should we decide, sir?”

  Master Heikert was taken aback by the question. Apparently, few dared ask it. Yet, he regained his composure in a second.

  “I will not give you a speech one way or another. I was faced with the same decision a long time ago, and I made a choice. By it, I lost and gained a lot. But I will not judge the choices any of you will make. And you can drop at any time if you wish to. Whatever happens, you have my support, now and forever.”