Guided by Starlight

by Matt Levin

  “That was how I rationalized it.”

  Vincent, who almost always kept his hand cupped over his mouth, began rubbing his chin. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the Union bugs the embassy. Particularly if it’s their building. That seems like the most logical worst-case scenario. But I can work on a transmission-jamming device or wiretap-detection software that you could use to protect yourself.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” Isadora said. “I may need to talk about things with my staff that I don’t want the Union to know about.”

  “Your staff,” Vincent repeated, continuing to rub his chin. “That brings up another point. You might want to think about bringing a full cabinet ensemble out of cryo. If you’re setting up a real government, you’ll need more specialists than Nadia, Russ, or myself.”

  Isadora hadn’t even thought that far ahead. But it was true: setting up a real executive branch would require a more than just a settlement expert, a military adviser, and an engineer. “It’s an embassy, so I figure I’ll need help managing diplomacy with the Union and the other powers,” she said. “Can you work on finding someone in cryo with diplomatic experience?”

  “Of course. You may also want to consider someone who could represent our people in the Union legal system. Especially if you’re planning on challenging the settlement charter referenda.”

  Isadora nodded. “That also makes sense. A chief diplomat, an attorney general, enough staff for each to build their own departments...anyone else, you think?”

  “Well...hopefully soon, the Calimor settlement can start producing goods for profit. Which means we’ll have a real financial system to work with. We’ll want someone who can manage our broader economic ecosystem.”

  “A chief of finance,” Isadora said. That too made sense. If she formed a cabinet that could handle diplomacy, economics, and any legal entanglements—along with the responsibilities shouldered by Nadia, Russ, and Vincent—she figured she’d be set. At least for the short term.

  “If possible, I’d like to have some dossiers for review by the evening,” she said. She still hadn’t developed the ability to give orders flat out, especially with the other three original crew.

  “Absolutely,” Vincent said. A comfortable moment of silence passed. “I suppose it’ll just be me aboard the Preserver soon. Out of our original four, I mean.”

  “I suppose so,” Isadora agreed. Internally, she was debating whether to air her concerns about leaving Meredith’s pod behind.

  “I’ll make sure everything keeps running smoothly. And I’ll manage the defrosting process as we bring more people out to staff either the Calimor colony or the Obrigan embassy.”

  Isadora nodded silently. “Oh, of course,” Vincent said. “I imagine you’re worried about leaving your daughter here.” Well, she thought, that settles that question.

  To her surprise, Vincent leaned forward and clasped her hands in his. “Isadora,” Vincent said solemnly, in a voice she hadn’t heard him use yet, “I promise you that nothing will happen to Meredith. Checking up on her pod and making sure she’s doing okay will be my number one priority. Every day.”

  Isadora was surprised by this show of compassion from a man she had seen as an absent-minded intellectual. Maybe beneath it all, Vincent truly appreciated the emotional weight Isadora was under.

  And it was exactly what she needed. “Thank you,” she murmured. “Thank you for everything. I know Meredith will be in good hands.”

  Vincent reiterated his promise to work on cabinet dossiers and have them forwarded to her by the end of the workday. Do my workdays ever end? she wondered as she exited Vincent’s quarters.

  She lingered at the viewscreen along the corridor outside. She had already bid Meredith goodbye once, when they were being loaded into their cryo pods back on Earth. At least no invading Hegemony forces are around to threaten her this time, Isadora thought. More recently, she had left her daughter on ice after the computer had woken her up. Somehow, this felt like an even more dramatic parting than the other two moments. This would be the greatest physical distance that had ever existed between her and her daughter.

  Contemplating how to become okay with that, she turned her gaze outward. Obrigan, the most populated planet in the system and the nexus of Union power and authority, was out there somewhere. Invisible to the naked eye and overshadowed by a dotted blanket of stars.

  That’s where she was going. Straight into the thick of it all. Or into the belly of the beast.

  CHAPTER 12

  * * *

  It was almost funny how quickly the news cycle had moved on from the suicide of Tanner’s coworker. For a few days after, Tanner had seen coverage of Jake’s self-immolation on the daily news channels, or read hand-wringing op-eds about how the Union had to do more about the rise of political extremism, or whatever.

  Then it just...faded. The media moved on, people stopped caring, and Tanner finally got a reprieve from his coworkers always asking him if he was okay.

  At no point during the brief coverage of the suicide had any media outlet described the links between Tanner’s coworker and the Natonus Offspring. They had either utterly failed to do any kind of research into the causes of the self-immolation, or they were deliberately concealing a major part of the story. Tanner wasn’t sure which prospect was more disturbing.

  One good thing had come out of all this, though, Tanner reflected as he sat on the couch in his studio absentmindedly perusing the news channels on the holo-vision. He had found the videos on the Offspring netsite incredibly valuable. Sure, there were anti-refugee screeds that he didn’t really care much about, but there were other videos that had a huge effect on his personal life.

  A lot of the Offspring vids, maybe even the majority, weren’t political at all. They were informational self-help tutorials that finally got him eating more regularly and exercising. Before, Tanner would go for hours without eating anything, only to binge on some kind of salty, greasy snack at night.

  Now, he was regularly preparing balanced meals and finally listening to his body when it told him he was hungry. Tanner found himself with far more energy to get through the day and heightened mental acuity.

  Exercising every other day also helped with his appetite. A few of the Offspring videos had talked about how, in the earliest days of settlement, colonists had done around-the-clock physical labor that kept their bodies and minds strong. But the transition toward long hours spent in an office had contributed to a widespread softening of the population.

  He had never thought about that kind of stuff very much, but he couldn’t deny how much better he felt after adding three days’ worth of calisthenics exercises at home. And he liked the idea of becoming more than just some typical office drone.

  Rebecca’s gentle snores coming from the other side of the studio interrupted Tanner’s thoughts. His sister was resting up for an exam she had the next day. Tanner had spent most of the evening helping her study, all the while coming to the realization that the days of him tutoring her seemed increasingly limited.

  She was in her third year of secondary school, with three more left to go until she could graduate. He had left school eight years ago, and he was appreciating how rusty some of his arithmetic skills had gotten. Before too long, he wasn’t sure he’d even be able to help her anymore.

  Rebecca’s snores prompted Tanner to chuckle and shake his head. The downside of his newfound energy was not feeling particularly tired. Otherwise, he might go to sleep too.

  Feeling struck with a spontaneous desire to get some fresh air, he grabbed a jacket hanging next to the door and headed outside. Tanner took a winding array of staircases down to the pedestrian platform, past rows of studios just as small as theirs.

  It was late, and it was the middle of the week, meaning few people were out. Tanner enjoyed strolling down the platforms absent mindedly, not having to worry about interacting with passersby. Fall was quickly approaching, and a crisp, cool breeze wafted through the night air. He dug
his hands deeper into the pockets of his jacket.

  He approached the railing of the platform, which opened up into a beautiful view of Obrigan City. There were corporate skyscrapers further off in the distance, but the closest buildings were massive tenement housing blocks like the one he and Rebecca lived in. Or shopping centers.

  On the weekend, there probably would have been more windows lit up. Or maybe the soft boom of synthetic music reverberating from after-hours dance halls and clubs. That’s what Tanner figured, at least. He normally wasn’t one to get out on the weekends.

  The original Natonese settlers—his great grandparents’ generation—had been lucky the planet Obrigan had been so hospitable to human life. The atmosphere was breathable, and only a few native fungal trees had been poisonous. The first generation of settlers had cleared the native flora out, using only imported seeds from humanity’s original homeworld within the city limits. If you went beyond Obrigan City’s bounds, you could still see the planet’s original plant life, but within the city there were just ancient Earth trees, mostly oaks, green grass, and flowers.

  He took another few deep breaths, enjoying the cool air and the peaceful surroundings, appreciating how safe the city felt.

  That had actually been the topic of one of the few political Offspring videos he had watched. The narrator had explained that, back in ancient times, humanity had naturally subdivided into tribes, then various nonsensical belief systems, then empires, and finally nation-states. Earth’s history was nothing more than a never-ending cycle of sectarian tension, violence, and warfare.

  But the Natonus System was humanity’s chance to start over, the unidentified narrator had explained. After almost a century of mixed-culture marriage and generational change, the Natonese people had bred themselves out of the old tribal hatreds.

  Maybe that was why Tanner felt so safe walking around at night. He didn’t know enough history to decide whether the video had been telling him the truth, but he figured it at least made some sense. And he knew that crime rates had been falling for decades.

  The Offspring video had concluded with a chilling warning: all of that progress was under existential threat due to the arrival of the refugee ship. That didn’t make sense to Tanner, but he resolved to keep an open mind.

  Even if he wasn’t sure about the video’s conclusion, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride in what his people, collectively, had accomplished. He had never really thought about what it meant to be Natonese before, but now that he was thinking consciously about his identity, it was easy to develop a sense of appreciation for the legacy that had passed down to him.

  Plus, it was the first time, recently, that he had thought about himself as a good, deserving person. Ever since his and Rebecca’s parents had passed, he had focused all his energies into making sure she could still have a bright future.

  The days blurred into months, which blurred into years. He went to work at Veltech, put in as many hours as he could handle, and invested everything he could in a college fund for his sister. You could still get a good job without a college degree, but Tanner had seen the stats. University education was one of the few tickets to real social mobility. It was one of the downsides of the Favan Administration’s aggressive welfare programs: the more the state tried to care for everyone, the harder it was for any single individual to rise. He’d go to any lengths to make sure Rebecca would have a life worth living.

  How long had he been trudging along like a lifeless shell? He tried to remember some specific event, any event, in the six years since his parents’ aircar crash. His mind came up blank.

  And now, suddenly, Tanner was actually liking himself. He felt his body becoming stronger, he was learning how to take care of his nutritional needs, and he could go a full day feeling alert and awake. Maybe he could have—deserve, even—his own life worth living.

  With a small grin, he turned around and headed back for his studio. He crossed the plaza and ascended the staircase. But then he paused at the first floor. Veltech partially funded its employees’ housing, like most megacorps, which meant that nearly all of Tanner’s coworkers lived in the complex.

  It had only been three weeks since Jake had self-immolated. As far as Tanner had heard, no one else had moved in. Obrigan City PD had gone through Jake’s apartment, but he figured it was still home to plenty of the dead man’s belongings.

  An intense desire to visit Jake’s old apartment struck Tanner. Sure, it was probably locked, but he had long since found ways to get around that.

  Years ago, the residency card the complex owners had given Rebecca was glitchy, but Tanner traded with her without her knowing. Then, he’d learned how to reprogram the radio frequency emitted by the access card to work in any of the complex’s units.

  Sure, that was technically illegal, but Tanner had never used it for nefarious ends. He wasn’t some petty thief. He just preferred doing his own easy fix instead of some long, drawn-out, fee-filled process with management to acquire a new residency card.

  The idea of using his rigged card to enter Jake’s old apartment illegally spiked his adrenaline. But hey, he had been enjoying the night, and he was feeling good. Why not give in to his curiosity?

  Tanner did a quick search via his wrist terminal and easily found the number for Jake’s apartment. He went up another floor and made a beeline straight for the dead man’s studio.

  He hesitated at the door. There were two other apartments on either side. Would someone hear if he entered what should have been an empty, lifeless unit? Would they alert the authorities? Tanner decided that it was probably late enough that no one else was up. Jolted by a wave of self-confidence surging through him—a feeling that he hadn’t realized was possible before the last few weeks—he waved his card in front of the door scanner.

  The light at the top lit up bright green. The door clicked. He was in.

  Carefully, Tanner pressed the door open, holding his breath until he was sure no creak would alert the neighbors. He exhaled slowly and silently as he tiptoed inside. It was dark and uncomfortably stuffy. The power company must have shut off Jake’s electricity some time ago, Tanner figured, since none of the motion-activated lights flicked on and the automated air conditioning seemed to have been off for a while.

  He activated the light beam function on his wrist terminal for visibility. There were still signs of life all over the apartment: clothes waiting to be put away strewn out on the floor, a set of dishes in the sink ready to be cleaned, a datapad on the coffee table still displaying the last news story Jake had been reading before he left for work the day of his death.

  Tanner had never been on a crime scene before—technically, he figured, Jake’s apartment counted if the police had gone through his belongings—but he was surprised that nothing was overturned. In his head, he had pictured OCPD recklessly rampaging through the studio, overturning chairs and furniture alike. Everything seemed mostly undisturbed.

  He walked into Jake’s bedroom, where a pale moonbeam formed a halo of light on the dead man’s bed. Sighing, Tanner wondered what he was doing here. Was he expecting to find answers? Something that brought him a sense of closure?

  What was he thinking? He hadn’t gotten particularly upset by Jake’s suicide. He didn’t need “closure.” He leaned his elbow against the wall, rubbed his forehead with his hand, and prepared to head back to his own apartment and get ready for bed.

  Which was when he noticed the hidden terminal. To most anyone else, it would just look like a small patch of the wall where the paint color was a little bit off.

  As part of his IT training, he had learned about the anti-snooping tech the Syndicate used in the field to get around Union law enforcement. Apparently, the black market was selling touch-activated holo-screens programmed to detect the ID radio signals most police had in their badges. They would only activate if no police were in the vicinity, and they could mimic the surrounding surface. Sometimes imperfectly, as with the slightly off-color display on J
ake’s hidden terminal.

  That seemed like whatever this was in Jake’s apartment. Tanner briefly considered the implications: did Jake, or the Offspring, have black market ties? How entrenched was the organization?

  Tanner walked over. A slot opened beneath the screen and revealed an input terminal, while the holo-screen hummed to life after Tanner touched it. The word connecting… flashed across the screen.

  The holo-screen had changed to show the picture of a generic text conversation server. After a fateful few seconds, the message Who the fuck is this? flashed across the screen. The sender was identified only as “Onyx.”

  Tanner stared dumbly at the screen for another few seconds, before he finally summoned the will to respond with I worked with Jake.

  I said, who the fuck is this? Onyx replied.

  Tanner was about to type out his name, but he deleted it. Did he really want to give out identifying information to a complete stranger? Are you with the Offspring? he typed instead.

  There was another pause, and Onyx’s tone seemed to lose its wrath. Did Jake tell you about us? they typed.

  No. I looked up your videos. They’ve been really helping me.

  Oh yeah? How so?

  Just the stuff on exercise and eating. I’m not really into politics.

  You should watch the politics videos too. All of them build on each other.

  I’ll think about it, Tanner typed.

  If you’re interested in our organization, we’re always looking for new talent. Especially if you managed to get past the security in Jake’s apartment. None of us wanted Jake to go out like that. He often seemed troubled.

  What would that entail? Joining the Offspring, I mean?

  Tanner was skeptical. He had just started working on getting his life back on track. The prospect of suddenly making new social connections intimidated him. But he had to admit that these Offspring people had played a significant role in helping him grow.