by Mark Wandrey
“Yes, only a few shots,” Bjorn emphasized. The councilors nodded in understanding.
“Classes start tomorrow,” Jacob said and gave her a chip. Minu used one of her holstered tablets to check it out.
“Twenty students at a time?” she said incredulously. “There are only three of us—”
“Four,” Pip growled.
“Sorry, four of us.”
“Then I guess you’re going to be busy,” Jacob said.
Minu had a vacant look as she began to mentally juggle schedules. Only a third of the guns were refitted, with more than a hundred to go. Beginning the training schedule with a full class and continuing the refit was going to be all but impossible. She gritted her teeth and spoke. “We’ll manage.”
“I’m assigning Gregg and Aaron to you, indefinitely,” Jacob told her.
“And giving them these,” Dram said and held out two boxes for them. Inside were four little black stars. More cheers. Minu smiled at the thought that everyone in her group from the Trials were now four-stars. Cherise had gotten hers months ago, and Pip had been promoted last week. After the unofficial meeting broke up, Minu caught Dram’s arm.
“What’s the rush?” she asked.
He looked at her quizzically. “You haven’t been reading mission briefings, have you?”
“I don’t really have time,” she said, and again thought about her critically-injured work schedule.
“You should make time,” he said soberly. Minu let go, and he left. Later in her office, Minu finished juggling her personal schedule, finally settling on six fifteen-hour days per week. Twelve at work, two on school work, and an hour to herself. Putting aside the tablet, she picked up a linked computer, accessed the Chosen database, and began reading mission logs. It took her a few minutes to find the scout’s logs from frontier missions. What she found left her stunned. Mission after mission resulted in combat. She accessed the tables of available manpower and hissed in disbelief. Of the three hundred trained scouts currently in service, fifty were out of action with injuries, and ten were dead. All had happened in the past six months. Everyone usually heard quickly when a Chosen died in the line of duty, but someone was keeping these deaths quiet. She went back through the logs, looking for when the casualties began. It was less than a week after she’d retrieved the cache. A few more keystrokes told her the Rasa had inflicted all the casualties.
“What did I do?” she asked the dark office. The training schedule now made sense. The Chosen were in a de facto war. The Rasa wanted to get even.
* * * * *
Part III
Chapter 1
December 9th, 517 AE
Tranquility, Plateau Tribe
It amazed Minu how quickly things changed. In the six months since she’d last set foot in her home town of Tranquility, many parts of it had become unrecognizable. As the dirigible circled to land, its passenger gondola almost empty and the crew looking dispirited, she saw some of the changes from a bird’s eye view. Two new skyscrapers clawed their way up from the city center. She’d known about the new Intergalactic Trade Federation building, but she hadn’t known about the other. The twenty-story Chosen Tower had been the tallest building in the city when she was a child; now it was quickly becoming a blade of grass, lost in a forest.
The city was alive with flying craft, which nearly outnumbered ground cars. She knew they’d installed a traffic-control computer two months earlier. She’d read about the horrific accident that gave the impetus for the system’s purchase and installation. Eleven died, including five school children. The school sold all their flying buses, even after the traffic computer guaranteed their operational ‘safety,’ but it hadn’t seemed to deter the average person in the least.
As the dirigible docked, she scanned the passengers waiting in the boarding lounge for a familiar face and found none. The other day during lunch, Pip had said if it wasn’t for the Chosen and their families, the dirigible lines would’ve gone broke long ago. She saw no evidence to dispute that claim. She’d seen on the news during her flight that they were planning to start construction on a maglev spur to Steven’s Pass next spring. Progress rolled on. The business consortium that owned the maglev development contract, headed by Malovich Industries, bragged that it would circle the globe in five more years. Extremists in the Desert Tribe vowed that would never happen. Their control of the cross-barrier desert trade generated most of their fortune. Building permanent tracks across the shifting sands of the equatorial desert was a daunting engineering task. Minu had little doubt about its accomplishment.
The airship docked successfully, and the passengers debarked. Minu bypassed baggage claim; like most Chosen, she carried everything she needed in a single black shoulder bag. It was heavier than usual because of the gun inside. A week earlier, Jacob had ordered that all Chosen qualified in hand weapons should always be armed, on or off base. He gave no explanation, and almost no one knew why. Casualties continued to mount in what Command and the Scouts called the Rasa Cold War. Minu understood the order far too well. The gun she wore on her right hip, an old-style firearm, was a constant reminder that the Rasa Cold War was at least partly her fault, regardless of her being cleared of any wrongdoing. Two days earlier she’d given yet another interview to the press, an hour of feeding them platitudes and obfuscating the truth that anything was happening beyond the norm.
Still, she was back in Tranquility on a forced vacation, so she vowed to have a good time. On her tablet she had a list of things she wanted to do, including visiting a movie theater playing restored movies from Earth, going to the new amusement park on the south ridge, and chatting with Jovich. Trying to forget the last three months spent training hundreds of scouts to use the lethal beamcasters, she left the terminal and joined the sea of humanity flowing along the avenue.
The hotel Logistics booked for her was new and hadn’t even been under construction the last time she’d visited. The room on the twentieth floor sported a wonderful view of the western edge of Plateau, and she could just make out Founders’ Park through the lines of buildings. Leaving her bag on the bed, she went downstairs to the restaurant. There, for the first time since becoming Chosen, she spent some of her accumulated pay. It was something she never thought about. Why would she? Her every need was taken care of. They’d issued her a debit card that had sat unused in a safe ever since. She’d almost missed the dirigible because she’d forgotten the card and had to run back for it. The waiter came by when she finished and offered her a handheld terminal to swipe her card to pay for her meal.
Minu took the printed receipt and left. On the street, she glanced at the receipt before pocketing it, then jerked it back out. The meal had cost five point eight credits, and she’d tipped a full credit, making the total six point eight credits. Below the total was her account balance. After her meal and hotel room, her net worth was just under three thousand credits. “Shit, I’m rich!” she blurted, earning her a stern look from a woman walking her kids.
“See, that’s why I want to be Chosen,” the older of the two boys laughed. The mother scowled even more and mumbled something about crude language as she bodily hauled her kids down the street.
Minu wandered around the district for a couple hours, taking in the differences and occasionally spotting things that looked the same. Overall, she felt like a stranger in her hometown. Eventually, she found herself at the Temple Plaza and was surprised to see it nearly deserted. Her whole life it’d been the center of most off-world traffic and had even been busy in the middle of the night. Trucks and wagons would bring goods to ship out or wait for those coming through the portal, while people waited in line for their chance to take trading trips to all corners of the galaxy. Now the plaza looked like a ghost town.
Minu walked up the steps to the ancient portal building. A lone Chosen stood guard, a duty she’d never performed. Although he was prepared to let her pass without review, she produced her ID anyway. He nodded and watched as she walked past. Inside was
the polished dualloy and ceramic concrete portal chamber.
The chamber was just as quiet as the rest of the complex. Only one Chosen was on duty, Jovich. But he wasn’t sitting at the control console where you’d normally find him. He was sitting cross legged on the portal dais and appeared to be deep in meditation. “Jovich,” Minu called through the speaker. She couldn’t enter; he’d locked the chamber.
When he didn’t respond, she called again. This time he stirred and looked around. When he spotted her, he smiled and stood. Minu noted how slowly he got to his feet, the pain briefly visible on his face. He removed a control rod from the pocket in his pant leg and released the door, which silently slid open. “What were you doing?” she asked as he walked over.
“Old habit.” he said with a shrug and a strange look. “Something an old man does to while away the hours before people start shoveling dirt on his face.”
Minu smacked him on the arm with mock anger, and he feigned great injury as she glanced back at the portal. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“Because I’d rather catch up with an old friend,” he said and scooped her up in a huge hug. After he’d given her the attention she deserved, he grabbed her hand and lifted her wrist for closer inspection. Four little golden stars twinkled there, almost as brightly as his eyes at seeing them. “Well on your way,” he said, a little choked up, “your father would be proud.” She looked at his cuff where he wore three black stars lined with gold. Funny that she’d never noticed the gold lining. She opened her mouth to ask what that meant when he spoke again. “You really want to know what I was doing?”
“Sure,” she said, a little confused by his change of heart. Jovich turned and led her back into the chamber, sealing it behind them. “Where are all the people?”
“Not many use this portal anymore.”
“Huh? I don’t understand.”
“Two months ago they shifted main traffic to the portal in Archangel.”
“Rusk territory?”
“Yep. This portal is now backup, for diplomatic use only.” He pulled a tablet out of his pocket and showed her the weekly schedule, which showed nothing for days. “In a few years, even the diplomatic traffic will move to Steven’s Pass.”
“What’s going on?”
“Can’t talk about it right now.”
“It has to do with the Rasa Cold War, doesn’t it?” Jovich studied her, then nodded his head. “Come on, I’m the one that started this fiasco.”
“You did what you were supposed to do,” he said, pointing a thick finger at her. “Besides, it was liable to happen sooner or later. At least you gave us an advantage.”
She sighed and nodded. The situation still weighed heavily on her conscience. “So, explain what you were up to.”
“You ever talk to many old Chosen?”
“A few besides you,” she grinned mischievously.
“A lot of us use the portals for meditation. We found out a long time ago that staring into the swirling energy patterns seemed to foster alpha brain waves.” Minu turned and looked at the portal, an arch of pure energy held in check by powerful force fields. Nobody really understood how they worked. The energy was somewhat visible; its swirling patterns of iridescent light seemed almost alive. The round dais was an opaque force field, the arch of the portal above the base was a sort of hologram that showed a constant swirling pattern of lights when anyone stood on the dais. Human scientists long suspected the force field safely contained the portal’s power, computers, and space-warping technology. “All you do is sit there and stare.” He sat down in the lotus position. Minu climbed the steps and joined him.
Immediately, she recalled the last trip to GBX49881 to study the Squeen. Sitting alone and bored, staring into the portal, she’d somehow lost track of time. Minu reached out and touched the portal dais. The cool surface of the force field felt slick, like wet glass. Jovich watched her as she examined the surface. The dais seemed to radiate a warmth through her seat. Once she was situated, all thoughts of the thin force field between her butt and the plasma faded, and she looked ahead at the arch. Slightly glowing iridescent plasma seemed to swirl inside. “Different, isn’t it?” he asked.
“You could say that.” She almost told him about the time on GBX49881.
“We take the portals for granted. They’re tools, like a taxi cab or a dirigible.” He reached out and stroked the slick force field almost lovingly. “There’s more here than we understand, I think.”
The moment passed, and Minu decided to save it for another time. “OK, so what do I do now?”
“Just relax and stare. Let your focus drift.”
“Stare at what?”
“The lights inside the portal archway.”
Minu looked sideways at Jovich, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was staring vacantly at the arch of the portal. “You’re kidding, right?” No answer. She cast him another sideways look, then shifted her seat to a slightly more comfortable position. “I don’t know how you can be comfortable on this thing, with your bony old ass,” she mumbled. Again, there was no response. With a sigh, she stared at the archway.
The colorful swirls inside the force field followed no pattern. They would change shades and directions randomly, combine and separate, then swirl together again. Minu remembered a lecture during her training when the teacher suggested the patterns were a convenient way of letting you know the portal was active. A simple green light would be more efficient. Once she’d settled down, she found it quite pleasing. The complete lack of pattern was soothing. After a short time, she stopped trying to focus on any one color or shape and, like Jovich said, let her focus drift. For a moment, her head lolled, and she felt like she was going to fall face first on the dais. Her gaze moved to the opaque force field she was sitting on, and suddenly, she was floating inside it.
“This is impossible!” she cried, though no words came out. It must be a dream or a hallucination. The energy, held in a plasma state, would be many thousand degrees. If she’d somehow gotten inside, the gas would have instantly vaporized her into charged particles, or worse, detonated the portal like a nuclear bomb. No, this wasn’t real. She must have fallen asleep! Jovich would think she was a stupid little girl, falling asleep while trying to meditate. She tried vainly to wake herself up.
Through the swirling gas, an indistinct shape took form, drawing her attention. Something like a ghostly spider floated toward her, or she was drifting toward it, there was no way to tell. This is better than a movie, she thought. As the shape got closer it gained more definition. It never became clearer than trying to focus through a bottle of water, but she could make out some detail. It was less like a spider and more like a crab, but its many arms reminded her of a spider. In the center of its body was a circle of five strikingly human-like eyes that all looked at her. “I suppose you represent my subconscious?” she silently asked the apparition. “Maybe I have some secret desire to be caught in a web.”
“I do not represent anything,” the thought came back, “I am.”
Minu jerked at the internal foreign voice. “You are what?”
“I am.”
“Oh, great. I’m being psychoanalyzed by my own subconscious.” She wanted to laugh, to desperately guffaw at the entire ludicrous situation. She was sitting on a portal dais dreaming about existential spiders? Yet somehow it wasn’t funny. It felt very serious. What was going on? Had Jovich tripped her up with some sort of test? Slipped her a drug that made her hallucinate? In the time she’d known him, he’d always answered questions with riddles, tested her thinking process, and challenged her assumptions. At least he’d never drugged her. Right?
“What is it you desire?” the thing asked her.
“Me? Inner peace and the answers to the meaning of life.” The ghostly spider/crab didn’t comment. “Okay, maybe that’s too much?”
“What is it you desire?”
“I guess I have to think about that.”
“We will wait.”
�
�There are more of you?”
“I am many, I am none, I am always. We have waited for you. The arrangement is becoming strained; our agreement has exceeded its parameters. Negotiations are necessary.”
“Right, okay. Do you live inside my mind? Are you a figment of my imagination?”
“I am.”
“Are you agreeing with me?”
“I am.”
She grumbled. Was it answering the question or repeating itself? “We’re going in circles. Bjorn ordered me to go have fun, so I’m going to leave now.” It didn’t say anything, so Minu began wondering how to get back to her body.
“They are trying to find you.”
“Huh?” she thought.
“They are trying to find you. They search the infinite sea of night for you. They have many eyes and many agents. They have succeeded, will succeed.”
“I don’t understand.” Even as she began to ask another question, her concentration shook, and the vision fragmented like broken glass. She was once more sitting on the hard dais facing the archway. Jovich shook her again, and she realized where she was.
“Did you fall asleep?” he asked.
“No, I was inside the portal!”
“That’s happened to me before, too. Very cool.”
“Really? What about that spider/crab thing?”
“Spider/crab thing? You got me there. You sure you weren’t asleep?”
“I don’t think so,” she said and rubbed her temples. Something like a headache was rumbling inside her head. As she rubbed, it began to subside. He laughed and gave her a hand up. The portal force field might feel warm, but it’d left her butt as cold as ice. “That’s what you were doing?”
“Yep. Like I said, it’s like an alpha-wave inducer. I’ve been using it for decades. Some Chosen say they’ve talked to God or whatever.”