Orion Lost

by Alastair Chisholm

  She carried on from before and didn’t mention the Videshi, ignoring any questions about them during the day. At break-time, Beth noticed Vihaan was still frowning and chewing the inside of his cheek. When he saw her, he hesitated, and then gave her a short nod before turning and walking away.

  And that was all the adults would say about it, no matter how much the children pried. A week later they had a regular Jump, and nothing happened. A week after that they Jumped again. And after that, nobody thought about the Videshi again.

  8

  End of Term

  Space, Beth had discovered, was boring. When she’d been discussing the journey, months before with Mum and Dad, she’d assumed it would be full of interesting sights and experiences. Nebulae! Binary star systems! Asteroids and black holes!

  Once aboard the Orion, though, she realised that these were all things that grown-ups thought were good to see from a long way off. In space, apparently, ‘exciting’ equalled ‘very bad’, and Orion’s navigators seemed to spend most of their time making sure they were far away from anything worth seeing.

  So they drifted, between Jumps, through the dullest backwaters of the sky. There weren’t many windows on the ship – just the observation decks and the odd maintenance inspection hatch – but video from cameras on the hull showed the same sight every day, a black blanket dotted with points of light that changed position but never seemed to come any closer.

  They were two months in, seven still to go, and their world was the inside of a steel egg. Their old social groupings were long gone. Instead, Ship and Captain Joshi organised events – dances, performances, game arenas – and gradually their life before Orion slipped away.

  At the end of that month the children went into exams. Beth scraped a pass in Programming and managed better in Ship Systems. Mikkel, in his quiet way, scored well in Physics and Linguistics, and Lauryn achieved a technically impossible 107% in her Computing assessment by exploiting a security flaw in the test machine. She was awarded a medal of distinction and told never to do it again.

  Command Training exams were different. They had written elements, and parts where Ship asked questions, and coursework. But the final test was an old-fashioned oral exam, with a real human being – the major.

  Beth’s heart had sunk when she learned about that. She’d spent the whole term spatting with Major Greyling, trying to figure out what she wanted, without success. Every question seemed to be a trap; every answer she gave was met with an incredulous shake of the head or a sarcastic comment that wrecked her carefully planned arguments and left her red-faced and foolish. And most aggravating of all had been Vihaan, sitting crisp and correct at the other side of the classroom with the right answer always on tap.

  The exam took place in the classroom. Beth waited outside for her turn, feeling her back sweat against the plastic chair and checking the time every few seconds. At last the door opened and Arnold sauntered out, frowning, hands in his pockets and a black smudge of grease on one cheek. Arnold wasn’t interested in Command Training. He’d spent the term stripping and reassembling one of the ship’s booster rockets as part of his engineering course. Now he nodded to Beth.

  “She says to go in,” he drawled, and wandered away. Beth drew a long breath and entered.

  The major sat behind her desk, writing on a pad. Beth sat in the empty chair across from her and waited.

  “Ms McKay,” the major said as she wrote, “this is the fourth and final part of your exams for Command Training Term One. This is an interview exam. Are you ready to begin?”

  “Y-yes. Yes.”

  “Good.” The major looked up. “On your first day aboard ship, there was an altercation between Lauryn Hopper, yourself, and Arnold Sanchez. Please describe it.”

  Beth blinked. “What?”

  The major raised an eyebrow. “Please describe what happened,” she said with heavy patience. “On the first day. In the canteen.”

  “Um. Well, there was a… I mean… Hang on – is this part of the exam?”

  “Ms McKay, everything from the moment you walked into this room is part of the exam. Everything from the moment you came aboard this ship. This is Command Training! You don’t get to decide when you will be tested. Answer the question!”

  She seemed quite serious.

  “Sorry,” said Beth. “OK. On the first day…” She tried to remember. “Arnold and Lauryn were having a spat. No. I mean, Arnold created a spat. He took Lauryn’s pad and wouldn’t return it. I, uh, interceded.”

  Major Greyling checked her notes.

  “You moved towards him aggressively, you shouted at him and insulted him, and you demanded he return the pad.”

  “I – yeah.”

  “And did that work?”

  “Kind of.”

  “No, it did not. Why did it not work?”

  “It did work; she got the pad back!”

  “Lauryn got the pad back because Vihaan Joshi ordered Arnold to return it. Tell me, what do you think would have happened if Vihaan hadn’t been there?”

  Beth remembered how big Arnold had suddenly seemed when she was in front of him.

  “He probably would have flattened me,” she admitted.

  Major Greyling’s lip twitched. Was that a smile?

  “Why did you do it, then?”

  “Well, you know … Lauryn is small, and he was… It just didn’t seem like—”

  “Compared to Arnold, everyone is small, including you. You’d known Lauryn for all of twenty minutes and you had no understanding of the tactical situation, and yet you ran across the room and threatened him without a moment’s thought. And the results were nearly disastrous.”

  “What else could I do?” Beth snapped. “Sorry. I mean, I didn’t think. She was in trouble.”

  “Hmm.” The major wrote something on her pad. She said, without looking up, “Tell me about Vihaan.”

  Beth chewed the inside of her cheek, baffled. Was this another kind of trap? To see if she was loyal or something? What should she say? What kind of exam was this?

  “He’s good at command,” she managed at last. “He knows all his stuff about, you know, command structures and theory and techniques. And he’s good at the practical stuff. Like – he can get people to obey him. They listen to him.”

  “Why?”

  Beth shrugged. “I don’t know. They just do.”

  The major snorted. “Dear me, what a terrible answer. Try again.”

  “Well…” Beth took a deep breath and concentrated. “He has confidence,” she said. “He talks as if people are going to do what he says … so they do. He looks like he always knows what to do.” Then she suddenly said, “And he sits right.”

  The major frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Beth wasn’t sure. It had just popped into her head.

  “I mean … in the canteen, he sprawls out, like … relaxed. At school he’s different. With Ms Cordoso, he’s…” She remembered the word she’d thought of at the time. “Aloof. But in Command Training, he’s like a soldier at attention. He keeps changing.”

  “So what? Why does that matter?” The major leaned forward and stared at Beth as if trying to read the answer off her face. Beth thought, I don’t know! Why did I say that?

  Think.

  She thought. The major tapped her stylus on the side of her pad; Beth ignored her. She thought.

  “When he’s with other kids, he’s relaxed,” she said slowly. “He’s showing that he’s completely confident. He tells Arnold or the others to do stuff and they do, because he talks like he knows they’ll do it. And he encourages them, and they like it. He’s like Captain Kier. He makes people want to impress him.”

  “Oh, of course, the marvellous Captain Kier,” drawled the major.

  Beth didn’t know what to say to that, so she ignored it. “And then, when he’s in class, Ms Cordoso is the relaxed one. So he becomes like … like the son of the king with a tutor. He’s saying that Ms Cordoso is just a … servant. He’
s refusing her authority.

  “But in Command Training he knows you have the authority. You’re his commanding officer. So instead he’s the good soldier. He can’t take over, so he becomes the second-in-command. Every time he meets a new situation, he knows how to take the most control he can.”

  The major leaned back, no expression on her face. “Is Vihaan a good leader?”

  Beth shrugged. “Probably. He knows his stuff. He’s good at taking control. He stays calm.”

  “And that makes him a good leader?”

  “Yes. I mean … it makes him good at leading.” She considered this, and then shook her head. “No. I don’t…” She hesitated. “I don’t think he cares about people,” she said at last. “He watched Arnold bully Lauryn and he didn’t step in until it became public. He’s good at command, but he’s not a good leader, because he doesn’t care.”

  It felt horribly disloyal. But it was true.

  “And what about you?” asked the major in a soft voice. “Are you a good leader?”

  And Beth laughed as she realised the answer.

  “No,” she said, with almost a sense of relief. “No, I’m not. I care, but I have no control. I’d like to be a good leader, but I’m not.”

  “Hmm,” said the major. “Well.” She made more notes on her pad. “Thank you, Ms McKay,” she said. “That will be all.”

  She carried on writing, and after a few seconds Beth realised the interview was over, stood up clumsily, and left.

  She told her mum later, on their way to the sleep pods for the weekly Jump. Beth’s mum strode down the corridor in the soldier’s gait that seemed effortless and ate up distance; Beth had to trot every second step to keep up.

  “I think I blew the Command exam,” she said.

  Her mum slowed. “Really?”

  “Yeah. The interview bit.”

  They were nearly at the pods.

  Her mum stopped outside. “Major Greyling told you this?”

  Beth shrugged. “Not really. In fact, I kind of told her.”

  Her mum started to say something, but a faint tremor rippled through the ship, just enough to notice. She looked to the wall screens and frowned. “Hang on,” she said. “Ship? What’s going on?”

  Ship appeared in front of them. “A small anomaly has been detected three hundred kilometres from the ship. It will be investigated prior to Jump.”

  As the avatar spoke, they heard fast footsteps round the corner and Captain Kier trotted past, fastening his flight suit as he went. He looked distracted; worried, Beth thought. But his face cleared when he saw them.

  “Here I go again,” he said, and laughed. “Hey, Beth.”

  Beth’s mum said, “Any idea what’s happening?” but he shook his head.

  “No. Probably nothing. Or an alien invasion. The usual.”

  She smiled. “Go get ’em, Henry.”

  “Will do.” He grinned at Beth. “Look after the ship for me, eh?”

  Beth grinned back. “Sure.”

  He jogged away. Beth’s mum watched him for a second and seemed about to say something, but shook her head instead and ushered Beth into the Sleep room. Ship was in there, preparing everyone.

  “Juvenile Sleep cycle will begin in five minutes,” the hologram said. “Please make sure you are in your sleep pods. Young adult Sleep cycle will begin in thirty minutes. Please head to your pod rooms.”

  Beth clambered into her pod and looked up. Her mum smiled down at her.

  “I’ve spoken to the major about you, you know,” she said. “She likes you. I bet you didn’t do as badly as you thought.”

  Beth almost laughed.

  Her mum shrugged. “And it’s only the first term.”

  “Juvenile Sleep cycle will begin in four minutes,” said Ship.

  “Besides,” said her mum, “I’ve heard that … that… What the—”

  WHUMP.

  There was a massive sound, so loud that it was more like a wall of pressure that crashed against Beth’s ears and stunned her. Her mum stumbled. And the ship lurched.

  A klaxon blared and red emergency lights rotated inside the room, firing danger signals all around them.

  “ATTENTION. ATTENTION. PREPARE FOR IMMEDIATE JUMP. REPEAT: IMMEDIATE JUMP. ASSUME JUMP POSITION. ATTENTION. ATTENTION—”

  “Status!” shouted Beth’s mum. “Ship, status! Ship!”

  “EMERGENCY JUMP IN FIVE, FOUR—”

  “Mum!” Beth reached up but the glass cover of the sleep pod had already slammed shut, trapping her inside. “Mum!”

  Her mum stared down at her. “It’s OK!” she shouted. “You’ll be OK!”

  “TWO, ONE—”

  Beth’s mum disappeared. The pod disappeared. The room and Ship and the emergency lights disappeared.

  Beth disappeared.

  9

  Awake

  I’m alive, Beth thought. I’m alive. The noise I hear is … breathing. I’m breathing.

  I’ve done this before. I’ve been like this. I’m…

  “Beth.”

  A sound from outside, but one that she was somehow expecting. This had happened before as well. The voice called her back and suddenly she was Beth again, and she was climbing up the long dark path into her body—

  The ship is in danger!

  “Beth.”

  The ship, the ship was in danger, she remembered. And Mum was there and then…

  “Beth, you will be experiencing some disorientation. This will pass. Do not panic. Control will return momentarily.”

  Mum’s voice sounded odd, cold somehow. Beth couldn’t put her finger on what was wrong…

  She opened her eyes.

  The ship’s hologram stared down at her.

  Beth tried to yell but couldn’t move her mouth. She tried to sit up, but her body ignored her.

  “Beth McKay, you are awake,” the hologram said. “You will start to regain control over your body soon.”

  Where’s Mum? Where’s Dad? The ship is in danger!

  “Beth, you must listen carefully to what I am about to tell you,” said Ship.

  Beth looked back, helpless. She tried to move her lips.

  “There has been an accident. There was an Event. As a result of this Event, it was necessary to carry out an emergency Jump.”

  “Mmmuuum,” managed Beth.

  Ship ignored her. “The emergency Jump was compromised. Sleep storage was compromised. All crew members not in sleep pods were compromised.”

  “Mmumm. Wherrrrezzz, Mmummm?”

  “Beth, please pay attention. Your parents and the rest of the crew are physically unharmed, however their Sleep has been compromised. I am unable to Wake them.”

  Beth realised she could move one hand in a slow twitch. She wriggled it around a little, trying to get life back into it.

  “I am unable to Wake anyone not in sleep pods at the time of the Event. In this situation there are protocols I must follow.

  “In the event of the loss of the entire bridge crew, command passes down in order of seniority for active members of the ship’s crew. In the event of no active crew members, command falls to any viable crew member with sufficient Command Training.”

  Beth’s hand was moving properly now. She gripped the side of the sleep pod and feebly pulled herself up, a centimetre at a time, into a sitting position, and swung her head towards the other pods. They were all still sealed.

  Ship continued. “Of the personnel and passengers who can be Woken, six have Command Training. Four have insufficient Command exam scores.

  “The remaining candidates are Vihaan Joshi and Beth McKay.”

  “Ship,” muttered Beth with a thick tongue. “Where is everyone?”

  “Beth, please listen carefully. The remaining candidates are of equal rank and are therefore ordered by Command exam scores. Vihaan Joshi’s most recent exam score is fifty-four per cent. Beth McKay’s most recent exam score is fifty-four-point-five per cent.

  “Beth McKay, you are the most sen
ior viable candidate for command. You are therefore designated acting captain of the starship Orion and all its crew. Please acknowledge this communication.”

  Beth swung her head back and gazed at Ship, with her mouth hanging slightly open, for a full minute.

  Eventually she said, “What?”

  10

  Second-in-Command

  Beth flopped out of the sleep pod and landed awkwardly on the floor. Her legs still weren’t working properly; she could make them move, but she had to think about each instruction. Move up, left leg. Move to the right, right foot. Take my weight. Take my weight. Ready… Up!

  Eventually she could stand, holding the side of the pod. Ship watched her.

  It was dark; she could hardly see the people in the other pods. The main lights were off, and the only illumination was from thin pale strip lights round the side of the walls, and the tiny monitors blinking away on the sleep pods.

  “Ship, why is it so dark?”

  “Emergency energy protocols are in place. Generators are in safety mode. Batteries are running at seventy-two per cent. Estimated time to failure: seven hours three minutes.”

  “Where are my parents?”

  “Carol McKay and Douglas Anderson are in Sleeping Berth Five.”

  Beth tried to turn, slipped, caught herself, worked out how to walk, and carefully lurched towards the doorway, grabbing at pods as she passed to hold herself up.

  Ship said, “Please designate your second-in-command.”

  “What?”

  “Please designate your second-in-command.”

  “I don’t… What do you mean?”

  “Ship protocol requires the captain to designate their second-in-command. The designated crew member will be Woken now.”

  “Ship, I’m not the captain.”

  “Of all the crew members with Command Training who can be revived, you are the most senior. Command protocol states that in this event you are the acting captain.”