Guided by Starlight

by Matt Levin

  “—the plan is counting on the fact that they have an agenda,” Nadia said. She hated interrupting others, but she had learned that Boyd could go on and on when he let his anxiety take over. She liked giving him the space to vocalize some of his worries, but she knew that letting him go too far just made things worse for him.

  “If they have ulterior motives, then we can leverage that to encourage them to help us even more,” she explained. “Whether through goodwill or ill intent, they’re invested in our success.”

  “Ah,” Boyd said. “The tail wagging the dog. I see where you’re coming from.”

  “And,” Nadia pressed, “you see that it makes sense.”

  “You are, frustratingly, right,” Boyd grinned. “But you better be planning on going in with backup.”

  Nadia had thought about that. The Exemplar only had four crew cabins, meaning she could take three others, assuming Boyd left. She hadn’t dared to ask the man what his plans were. He had dropped everything, given up a lucrative career, just to help her people. Even if their mission had brought about the reckoning with his past that Boyd needed, it was an insane act of selflessness.

  But it was also more personal. Nadia respected the hell out of Isadora, and had always felt comfortable around Vincent, but Boyd was her first true friend in the Natonus System. Secretly, she didn’t want him to leave her crew.

  “I figure I can get a couple more soldiers from Russ to crew up, once…” Nadia had a hard time finishing the sentence: once you head back to Obrigan.

  A look of realization crossed Boyd’s face. “Oh, you mean me? I mean...I would completely understand if you’d want to staff the ship with your own people moving forward, but…”

  “Do you want to stay?” Nadia forced herself to ask.

  Boyd turned around and pressed his forehead against the cockpit viewscreen. It gave them a ground-level view of a handful of settlement structures, patched together with a strange motley of plastics, metals, and synthetic materials. Nadia could make out the patches of the original settlement, as well as the repairs from when Boyd and his people were still living on Calimor, and finally the repair work that she and the colonists had done.

  New Arcena’s appearance wasn’t beautiful in any objective sense, but that made it all the more meaningful for Nadia. It was a testament to decades’ worth of mutual labor. Communal cooperation. People who didn’t even know each other were all contributing to the same, generational project. It evoked similar feelings from when she was working alongside Boyd and Derek.

  “It’s stupid,” Boyd said at last. Nadia tensed up, waiting to hear his answer. “I figure most people, when they get nostalgic for their childhood, mean their family or their old friends. But for me it’s the place. Just coming back and seeing this planet...I dunno, I’ve never had that same sense of devotion to anything like I had back then.

  “I realize the people are all different now. Going to be different. But if there’s anything I can do to keep the settlement running smoothly...I want to play a part in that. If you’ll have me.”

  The feeling of Nadia’s heart shooting up might’ve torn a hole through her ship’s bulkhead. “You’ll always have a place aboard the Exemplar, Boyd,” she said.

  “Besides, someone’s gonna have to keep your eyes open when you’re dealing with the Horde,” he said.

  “True that,” she agreed. “But on that matter, I realize now that having you as a guide was essential to the success of the Calimor expedition. Similarly, I think having someone who grew up on Ikkren will be necessary if we’re headed there next.”

  Boyd’s face went from confusion to realization to suspicion. “You don’t mean—”

  “—I’m afraid I do.”

  On cue, they heard a knock on the aft landing ramp. “I’ve already contacted someone who could help us navigate Ikkren. And it sounds like he’s decided to come earlier than I asked him to,” Nadia said, rolling her eyes. She had hoped to make sure Boyd was on board before their new crew member arrived.

  “Anyway, he’s interested,” Nadia said as they walked toward the rear of the vessel.

  “Oh no,” was all Boyd could say.

  The door to the airlock pulled back when they got there, revealing the face of Derek Hozan. He had two large bags’ worth of personal belongings strapped over both shoulders. He grinned at Nadia and nodded politely toward Boyd. “Happy to come aboard,” Derek said.

  “Just shoot me now,” Boyd muttered.

  CHAPTER 19

  * * *

  When Isadora had first met Russ, Nadia, and Vincent, she hadn’t felt particularly nervous about making a good impression on them. So she wasn’t sure why she was feeling so nervous today. If anything, it should be easier the second time around.

  The three members of her executive cabinet—a chief financier, an attorney general, and a diplomat—had arrived in Obrigan City the previous night. After allowing them a restful night’s sleep, Isadora had scheduled an initial strategy meeting for this morning.

  She realized that she couldn’t even call Russ, Nadia, or Vincent her staff in her thoughts. They were always the other crew members. Even if she was in charge, nominally, she saw them as equals. But she had fewer problems thinking of the arriving three as her deputies.

  Maybe that’s why she was nervous. She was expecting herself to project a degree of authority that she hadn’t felt was necessary with the original three.

  She walked over to the large window pane that formed the outer wall of her new office. Isadora and her staff had worked to convert the top level of the embassy into an executive suite, with the four floors underneath each devoted to a different department: defense, commerce, diplomacy, and legal.

  The top floor had the best views. From her desk, Isadora could see over the oak trees in the courtyard below and past the other diplomatic offices, getting a view of the megacity’s skyline. Or at least the government district. Most of the buildings were blocky and steel-based, although the dome-topped Government-General sat just across the district from them.

  After doing months of work in a dorm-sized cabin aboard the Preserver, it felt good to have a real office. It was even more luxurious than Isadora might have wanted, with a lush carpet lining the floor and a pair of ferns on either side of the windows. The room stretched about fifteen feet high, making the window panes seem all the larger.

  At first, Isadora had felt uncomfortable with the luxuries of her new workspace. It rankled her that there were still dozens living on subsistence rations back on the Preserver. Or hundreds barely scraping by on Calimor. How could she claim to be a genuine representative of her people if she lived in far better circumstances than the overwhelming majority of them?

  But her thinking had changed. She was her people’s foremost representative, which also meant she was a symbol for everyone they had brought out of cryo or who was still asleep aboard the Preserver. Isadora had learned to, if not enjoy, then at least not resist the trappings of power. She hoped to convey the unyielding dignity of her people to the Natonese and the Union.

  When she was alone, she liked slipping her work shoes off to enjoy the feel of the carpet. While her staff were preparing the conference room on the floor below, she stood next to the windows and finished the rest of her first cup of coffee. Maybe with her deputies taking over some of her work, she’d finally get enough sleep that she could cut down on caffeine.

  It was grey, overcast, and cold outside. The hum of the heating unit breathed softly from the vents overhead. Even still, the window was clear enough she could see her reflection. Since there were no mirrors in her office, she had been using her window reflection to practice talking to her cabinet members.

  One of her staff, in a happy coincidence, had been a speech coach back on Earth, and had helped her work on her verbal tics. “You realize you always give out orders as questions, right?” he had asked her. “Whether it’s ‘Would you mind…?’ or ‘If possible, can you…?’ or something else. You might consider prac
ticing a little more gravitas,” he had advised her.

  And so she had. Every morning, as she drank her coffee and looked out over the skyline, she’d practice telling her reflection what to do. She had sounded angry and rude, at first. Then, after a few days, she started nailing down the firm-but-fair approach the speech coach had recommended. Or at least she hoped so.

  Isadora walked back to her desk. A datapad sat on top giving brief biographical details of the three cabinet members she was about to meet. Resolving to go over the data, she instead instinctively reached for a picture of Meredith that had become a permanent fixture on her new desk.

  It was a framed picture from the time she and Meredith had taken a short camping trip to Mt. Rainier. Isadora had always worried about her daughter’s proclivity to get lost in her schoolwork. It hadn’t been uncommon for Meredith to still be up, working on homework, when Isadora would get back from her late-night shifts.

  So, camping. Isadora had taken the opportunity to tell Meredith about her plans to run for city council over smores. “Okay,” Meredith had blurted out. “Sure, yeah. Whatever. Sounds great.” A thin laugh escaped Isadora’s mouth. She wasn’t sure her daughter had quite understood the full implications of what Isadora was trying to do.

  Considering the decision to run for city council had inaugurated a chain of events that led to her sitting in an office across the galaxy from Earth, maybe she too hadn’t quite understood the full implications.

  She rubbed her thumb on the edge of the frame, even though she knew it couldn’t provide the comfort holding her daughter again would. It would have to do for now. Isadora turned to the datapad and reviewed the dossiers.

  Confident she knew at least the bare minimum to meet her new staff, she slid the datapad into the top drawer of her cabinet. It came to rest right next to her bottle of anti-anxiety medication. She’d felt guilty buying the pills. They had to follow a strict budget for everything else, and the meds weren’t absolutely necessary for her to do her job.

  But she had bought them anyway, and taking the meds helped with the guilt—in addition to all the head spins the weight of her job planted in her head—so she figured it was a wash. Although she considered taking a pill before the meeting, she decided she’d be fine without it. She refilled her mug, exchanged her synthetic-fiber cardigan for a blazer, put her shoes on, and headed for the meeting room.

  On the way, Isadora paused at a holo-vision her staff had mounted on one of the corridor’s walls, which was broadcasting an interview with one of Tricia Favan’s military advisers, General Owen Yorteb. The general was speaking about the developing situation on Calimor. “If the new arrivals are entering a formal alliance with the Horde, then we must reevaluate our relationship with them,” the general said. “Increasingly, it appears these refugees should be viewed as threats to state security.” Isadora rolled her eyes and proceeded onward.

  Noticing that the meeting room door was slightly ajar and hearing the low murmur of voices within, Isadora paused with her hand on the door. She drew in a large breath, held it for a few seconds, and let it out. She adopted a serene, congenial expression on her face and pushed the door fully open.

  “Hello. I am Isadora Satoro,” she said, flashing her best smile at the three individuals facing her. Talking too fast again, she thought, making a mental note to slow down. “Welcome to this system’s capital.”

  She figured this would be the first of many strategy meetings she would conduct with her staff, but right now, all she wanted was to work out a road map for their immediate projects. And she wanted to set the tone for their working relationship.

  This conference room was far more spacious than the small one aboard the Preserver. The rectangular table was made of light mahogany, and was far larger than the small oval of the Preserver’s meeting table. Even the lighting was softer than the harsh fluorescents of the cryo vessel.

  There was a table with a few basic pastries and a large coffee dispenser on the other side of the room. “I trust you all can get more coffee or nourishment on your own if you need it,” Isadora said.

  She noticed that two of them—Alexander Mettevin and Gabriella Betam, based on the dossiers’ profile pictures—were sitting in rapt attention, while the third, Katrina Lanzic, was staring off to her left.

  “We are in this situation because of unimaginable tragedy,” Isadora said. “But the best thing we can do to honor the memory of those who died aboard the Anointer, or in the destroyed wing of the Preserver, is to forge ahead. We have to do everything we can to help the 40 million still alive.”

  Isadora suddenly felt herself gripped by fears that she was coming off wooden or uninspiring. Or even downright cold, as though she was someone who could casually shrug off the deaths of 15 million people with platitudes. But just as she had asked her cabinet to do, she forged ahead.

  “In that light, I would like to hear about your initial meetings with your staff as well as your departmental plans for the immediate future. Alexander, I’d like to hear from you first,” she said, turning to her chief of finance. “Or would you prefer Alex?”

  The man had a cherubic face and light skin complimented by a tangle of messy, dirty blond hair on top. Originally from New Zealand, he had worked for the International Monetary Fund before going back to school for an economics degree. His thesis had touched on colonial development. “Alexander, actually,” he grinned. “I’ve just started reviewing the yield projections from Calimor,” he said, his eyes flashing in excitement. “Once we figure out a way to import enough food to keep the colony going, I’ll have my people transition the settlement toward spice production. I’ve already been in touch with the mayor there to come up with plans.

  “But once Calimor shifts to spices? We’re golden!” he said, giddier than Isadora felt was warranted given the weight of the situation. But she admired the man’s enthusiasm. The dossier had mentioned a nephew of his still in cryo aboard the Preserver, but if thoughts of his nephew were bothering Alexander, he wasn’t showing it. Or maybe forced enthusiasm was his coping mechanism.

  “Spice hasn’t been coming out of the outer rim for seven years,” Alexander continued. “And the soil conditions on most of the inner planets are lousy for growing it in bulk. The price will be artificially inflated. Thanks to our effective monopoly on spice production, we’ll be rolling in cash in no time.”

  “No time, ma’am,” Isadora corrected him with a smile, hoping it came off firm but affable.

  Alexander laughed. Isadora tried to figure out whether it was more of the nervous or self-deprecating kind. “Of course, ma’am,” he said.

  She then turned to Gabriella Betam. The woman was plump and appeared all-business, wearing a dark pantsuit the same color as her pair of thick-rimmed glasses. She had graduated from law school in Lagos. She wore her long hair pulled back in dreadlocks. “Actually, I go by Gabby, ma’am,” the woman said.

  Isadora cocked a small grin. “Two strikes, I see.”

  “It’s funny,” Gabby said, more seriously. “When I first applied for law school back on Earth, it was all about memorizing hopelessly vast amounts of information. I spent months cramming just to squeak by the entrance exams. And then the Hegemony attacked, I ended up here, and sleepless nights memorizing the ins and outs of both UN and Nigerian law went out the window.”

  Isadora and Alexander chuckled politely. Katrina was silent.

  “But I think I’m getting a handle on Union law,” Gabby continued. “At least, the parts of it that are obvious. They don’t actually have a written constitution, which means my staff and I have been going through four decades’ worth of legislative precedent.” Isadora remembered from the primers that the Union only dated back to 2361, after a brief, nearly bloodless civil war with the autocratic government that used to control the system.

  “Our priority is to challenge the settlement charter referenda,” Gabby said. Gabby’s dossier had mentioned a large family, including parents, aunts, uncles, three brothers, and
a sister. Isadora hoped Gabby wasn’t feeling too isolated without her family here to help her cope.

  “We are getting some unexpected help, however, from our xenophobic friends in the Solar Communities First Association,” Gabby continued. “They have already filed a brief in the court system arguing that the Union does not have the legal right to even consider allowing non-residents of this system to settle on any planets. By necessity, that means they’re also disputing the legality of the referenda. So I’m working on filing a joint brief stating that we concur with the legal conclusion of the Association’s suit.”

  Isadora blinked several times. “That seems like a massive own-goal for our adversaries,” she said.

  “To put it bluntly, ma’am, they’re assholes, not geniuses. But they might end up being the useful idiots we need.”

  “Keep me updated,” Isadora said, turning to face her new ambassador, and trying to decide whether she went by Katrina or just Kat. According to her file, she had been Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN, and was originally supposed to evacuate aboard the doomed Anointer. Only by arriving late had she boarded the Preserver, and thus survived. But that probably meant the Preserver’s computer didn’t have her information in its data banks, and therefore would have passed her up in choosing their political representative.

  “It’s Katrina, ma’am,” the woman said flatly, before Isadora had the chance to address her. The woman was tall, broad-shouldered, and had long blonde hair pulled back in a simple ponytail. “I have already directed my staff to make contacts with various ranking members in the Union’s Ministry of Diplomacy. I have also arranged a personal meeting with the head of the ministry over lunch tomorrow.”

  Katrina paused, as if trying to measure her words. “Permission to speak freely, ma’am?”

  “Of course,” Isadora said.