Riss opened her eyes. The Ceres mining station lay beyond the horizon, just outside the physical limits of the view screen. But not outside her awareness. Nor her crew’s awareness, she knew with conviction.
She suppressed a yawn, and rubbed her forehead with the back of a hand. Tiring, but not as much as the previous two times. Perhaps working together mitigated the effects.
They had changed. But to what degree?
Her crew gazed at the surface of Ceres above them. Cooper coughed, wiped an arm against a sweat-covered forehead. Despite all that had happened, he still felt uncomfortable approaching planetoids and ships while “upside down.”
“We’re,” he croaked, “we’re not dead.”
“Yeah, we noticed,” Enoch said. He languidly splayed his arms over the console as if hugging the ship in reassurance.
“Sanvi,” Riss asked. “What happened? I thought we were just going to try to make Artemis go a little faster as a test.”
Sanvi shrugged. “It looks like we passed the test.”
“Passed it all the way to the catcher,” Enoch said. He grinned. “Man, what a trip!”
“Riss, shall I take us into orbit?” Sanvi asked.
Riss nodded. As Sanvi slipped the Artemis into geosynchronous orbit around Ceres, Riss cast her eyes up and down the pilot. Something had passed between them, hadn’t it? Before they had combined to move the Artemis. Sanvi briefly glanced back at Riss. A look of longing, desire, hope.
Something had happened when Riss touched the fields in her cabin. Something that Cooper and Enoch probably sensed as well.
“Enoch, let’s shield,” Riss said, trying to appear composed. “And try to raise them on the comm, though it probably won’t matter.”
“Aye.”
This close to the Ceres Mining Station, she thought, the Artemis wouldn’t have to use quantum ping locators. Then again, their remote manipulation of the catcher system had no doubt already sent a message to the Mining Council.
The view screen dimmed as the solar radiation protector grid came online.
“Passing over Ahuna Mons,” Enoch called out. The mining station entry port lay ahead.
“Adjust trajectory,” Riss ordered. “Straight at Haulani.”
“Aye.”
She glanced over at Enoch. The navigator seemed relaxed, confident. Happy, even. Not in his normally cocky way, though. From their brief connection, she knew that he had longed to match his ancestors’ navigation skills. Now he had surpassed them. Not even the Wayfinders could have claimed to become one with their ships as he had become.
At the same time, she knew his feelings for her. And for Sanvi. More like a childlike crush than deep attachment, but there nonetheless. Cooper was more complicated. His was a real sense of losing himself, in more than one way.
And Riss, herself?
She felt more conflicted than ever. Than she had any right to be.
But there was no mistaking it. They had shared something, something she couldn’t put into words. Her crew did trust her, completely, as she did them.
At least in terms of physical safety. After that…
Sam, she thought. Where are you?
More to the point, Where was she?
“Approaching the Sea of Salt,” Enoch reported. He sat up straight and swiveled his chair. “Somebody’s waiting for us.”
“What?”
Riss swiped the 3D imager on again.
The Sagittarius. The Corvus.
And the Pleiades. Plus at least two or three other ships she couldn’t identify at first. One didn’t seem to be a mining ship.
Sanvi cursed.
“Raise the Ceres Mining Council on the comm,” Riss ordered.
“Too late,” Cooper said. “Incoming.”
The familiar growling voice of Gennaji filled the command center.
“I will have my own, murderer.”
Riss felt her arms begin to shake, but with great effort controlled herself. “You have no authority here,” she said tersely. “I demand to speak to the Mining Council.”
Laughter, from another ship. A strong alto voice.
“You still don’t get it, dear.”
Ildico?!
Sanvi closed her eyes and began to breathe. Enoch had done likewise, then opened his eyes and dashed off a series of commands on his console. Sanvi’s fingers seemed to be dancing as well. The Artemis itself felt tense. Riss thought she felt a sudden panic inside her head, like a frightened animal facing a larger foe.
“Shielding up,” Sanvi said quietly. “Enoch has already plotted an escape vector.”
After fighting off the panic she felt rising within, Riss managed to find her voice. “What is going on here?”
“Riss,” whispered Cooper. “Somebody has ditrium on board. I can feel it.”
“We are the Mining Council now,” Ildico’s voice purred. “And justice is about to be served. At last.”
Next: Bringer of Light, Chapter 27: Luna – Retired Captain Bardish finds himself at the center of things
Over the years, the SAA has been responsible for several spacecraft failures and even dictates when astronauts can and can’t perform spacewalks. As the space around Earth becomes filled with an increasing number of craft, what does the SAA mean for the future of spaceflight?
This post is from back in February 2021, but I just stumbled across it this morning and thought it was an interesting read.
Learn something new every day!
This part caught my eye…
Radiation is a colorless, tasteless, and odorless enemy…
…and I couldn’t help thinking…
Iocaine powder?!?
It’s okay. I’m immune 😂
Anyway, the article linked above is food for thought. Whenever electronic objects pass through the SAA, which is where the loops of the Van Allen Belt dip perilously close to the Earth, the electronics get a massive amount of radiation and go haywire.
Seriously expensive to shield stuff up there — and as more and more satellites (and people) go up, so does the risk.
Apparently, this is designed to shoot alcohol into your hand “whenever and wherever you feel like it.”
Hmm. I don’t suppose a clever person could figure out what else to fill it with that would be easily slipped into someone’s drink or food. Or spray your own hand and then shake your enemy’s. Or touch his face.
Say, didn’t this happen already to a member of a certain pariah country’s ruling family?
And, uh, Spidey doesn’t just spray his hands. That’s not really how it works. Just saying.
Riss and the crew of the Artemis have experimented with their strange new understanding of the universe – both physical and emotional. Still far away from Ceres or Mars and unable to contact those who may have been similarly affected by the asteroid, the crew has to find a way to traverse the vast space that lies ahead…
The banging on the door came again. A muffled shout from the corridor side.
Enoch?
Riss opened her eyes. Her feet were firmly stuck to the floor of her cabin. Having forgotten to remove her magboots. She was standing, swaying in place. Yawning, she stretched her arms over her head.
“Open.”
The geist practically fell through the opening doorway. Caught from behind by the navigator.
“Riss, are you, are you okay?”
“Yeah, fine, fine, Coop.” She turned to the fridge unit. “Water.”
The fridge rolled out, door opened. A pack of water came to her hand.
Cooper’s eye widened slightly. He straightened himself, brushing off Enoch’s grasp. “You seem to have everything under control.”
She laughed. “Sorry to make you all worry. Did I oversleep?”
“The opposite, actually,” Sanvi called out. Riss could see her now, leaning against the corridor wall with her arms crossed.
Sanvi nodded at Enoch. “Somebody has been demanding that we try the pitaya experiment again.”
Enoch shrugged. “I got hungry.”
Riss looked between the two of them. Suddenly she felt an enormous bond among them. Her friends. Her crew. It was as if she could see a glow around their rough edges.
Especially Sanvi.
She took a deep breath and smiled.
“I have a different idea. Let’s try to make the Artemis go faster.”
“Faster?”
“Yeah. We’re still two days out. Let’s see if we can make the ship go faster first. If we can make it go faster, we should obviously be able to make it go slower. Or order the catcher to grab our quantum signature and slow us down.”
The crew looked around at each other. Sanvi looked almost completely at peace to Riss, whereas Enoch appeared typically bemused. Cooper still seemed a bit uneasy.
“Coop,” she said, laying a hand on his arm. He began to pull away, but relaxed. “Coop,” she repeated. “We are all friends here. All in the same boat.”
“Ship,” Enoch put in. He smirked, then put his own hand on Riss’s shoulder. “Captain. Riss. I still think this is all crazy, but crazy and me go back a long ways.”
He looked at Cooper, then Sanvi. “Let’s give it a try,” he said. Both nodded.
Riss gazed at Sanvi. The pilot appeared as if she were surrounded by what Riss could only think of as an aura.
She passed her glance from Sanvi to Enoch. Then Cooper. They all seemed to glow, ever so faintly.
Like the rock in their hold, she realized. Sanvi’s aura shone brightest of all. But even Enoch and Cooper glowed, ever so faintly. Almost as if she were seeing all of them, who they truly were, for the first time. She wondered if they saw the same of her.
“All right,” she said quietly. “What do we do?”
“For starters, I think we ought to sit down,” Sanvi replied. “In our chairs in the command center. Just to be safe.”
“Good idea,” Riss said. “Let’s not take any chances. We’re still new at this, after all.”
Enoch shook his head. “This is nuts, man.”
“For once, we agree,” Cooper grunted. “But you said we should give it a try.”
“Yeah,” Enoch said. “Surprised myself. But I’ll try anything once.”
Firmly strapped in her chair, Riss called up the 3D holomap and checked their coordinates. Still on course for Ceres. No sign of the ship slowing down.
“What’s our ETA, Enoch?”
He leaned forward over his console. “Just under 44 hours.”
“OK, let’s see if we can speed up just a bit and get there in 24 hours instead.”
Cooper squirmed in his seat. “Riss,” he said hesitantly, “I’m not so sure about this. Isn’t this, I don’t know, kind of—”
“Like sorcery?” Sanvi finished.
He nodded.
“We’re simply going to meditate,” she reassured him. “Every belief system has its meditation style. This no different.”
“But we’re different,” Enoch pointed out. “Who knows what will happen?”
“If anything strange happens,” Riss said, “Just concentrate on the ship. Our position in space. Your position in it. And yourself.”
She nodded at Sanvi. “You’re the expert at this. Tell us what to do next.”
“Hold your hands clasped just beneath your waist. Like this.”
She demonstrated. They all copied her.
“Now close your eyes. Gently. Keep your shoulders relaxed. We’re going to breath in and out slowly.”
Eyes closed, Riss heard Sanvi’s continued instructions.
“Breathe slowly. In. Hold. Out. Hold. Feel the space around you.”
Breathe.
In.
Lungs filled. The air seemed stale. Cold.
Out. The hum of the engine rose. Heart beat, pounding.
“Relax. Accept.”
Breathe. In. Hold. The air contracted, then expanded.
Her body remained still, yet seemed to grow, extend.
Out. Hold.
She could see the command center, even with her eyes closed.
Breathe. In. Hold.
From a great distance, Ceres came into view.
Contact.
She saw her navigator spread his wings, become the ship.
The geist flowed like molten rock, became a geode, lava cooling into pumice, crystalline shapes cascading.
The pilot enveloped the ship, pointing ahead.
The Captain’s heart, slowing, rhythmically, matching the engine.
Space opened.
The Cosmos.
Within her. Without her. In-between and among.
Part and whole. All and nothing. All in one. One in all.
Who was she?
Who was Sanvi? Enoch? Cooper?
Were they separate or the same? Sharing the universe, or the universe sharing them?
The ship spoke. They listened. Heard no words yet heard everything.
There was no ship. They were the ship. There was no space. Space and the ship.
The Artemis pounced.
The Hunter. Her arrows, sharp and pointed. They hunted the stag. It bounded in front, behind, below. Just out of reach. It came into view.
The catcher of Ceres. The part of the Artemis that was Riss reached out to the part that was Sanvi. Mutual understanding. No borders. No boundaries.
The Pilot and the Navigator reached out. The catcher turned.
The Geist withdrew, trembling.
Riss felt his fear. No, she heard herself urge. Stay with us. We are one.
His panic spread. The ship shuddered.
Calm, she thought. Stay. We’re almost there.
The part that was Cooper felt his heart beat, skip, start again.
Breathe out. Hold.
The ship that was Enoch slowed, feeling an end.
Breathe in. Hold.
A great wall arose. Translucent. Shimmering.
Pure silver.
Next: Bringer of Light, Chapter 26: Ceres (coming, hopefully, on October 9, 2021)
OK, I readily admit that I am once again waaaay behind on my scifi blogging.
At some point last week, I looked up from the mass amounts of work I had left to do and went, “Uh. August 21st? Was that really the last time I posted?”
Uh. Yup.
😣
I’ll do my best to get the rest of Riss’s story online on a biweekly basis, like I promised I would.
In a video on the YouTube channel Bloomberg Quicktakes, Fearn and Woodward propose using the “Mach Effect Gravity Assist” drive to cut interstellar travel time down to within a human lifetime.
She was floating, feeling free at last. Unbound by any restraints, in control of herself. She finally knew who she was…but something tugged at her, something she had been searching for. Something calling her.
“Clarissa…Clarissa, honey…”
“No, no, I don’t want to go!”
Strong arms, gentle arms holding her. A needle pricks her upper arm.
“It’s okay, you’ll be safe. I promise.”
“Papa! No!”
Shadows, sad shadows are all she can see. So sleepy.
“We’ll see you soon, varobushek.”
Mama…
Riss suddenly sat up in her bunk.
Or, rather, tried to sit up. The sleep restrainer harness yanked her back down with a jolt. Feeling foolish, she pulled at the velcro and the straps floated harmlessly next to her. Rubbing her arms where the strap had dug in, she sat up again, slowly, and pulled her magboots on.
After her experience the previous night, she had decided to take no chances. The Artemis was beginning to slow down as they approached the Happy Hunting Grounds, returning the microgravity closer to its normal low. She should have used the harness every single night, but to tell the truth, she hated it.
Hated being restrained by anything.
What she couldn’t give for a gravity generator. Not feasible on a ship this size, given the energy consumption. In the meantime, time for her calcium supplements.
She touched a panel and removed a sealed pack of tablets from the drawer that popped out. She grabbed another pack of water, hesitated momentarily, then popped it open and inserted the straw.
Oh, well, she thought, downing the tablets and taking a big sip. Far too late to worry about what was in the water.
She leaned back in her bunk and took another long sip. The patterns suddenly came into view, dancing across the surfaces of the room. Then they faded, but she could see them.
Almost imperceptible. Everywhere.
The walls, the floor, the ceiling. The desk. The pad and its charge port in the wall. Her magboots.
Herself.
The doll.
She paused and rested her gaze on the motanka. It hadn’t changed back to its original color, still green with checkered red, white and yellow patterns on the skirt. The yellow hair had turned brown. No, red-brown.
The color of her own hair, she suddenly realized.
She drained the water pack and let it float to the ceiling. Maybe it was time to do some more experimenting.
She stretched out her hand and concentrated.
Nothing at first. Then she relaxed her hand, thinking of the motanka. As if in response, the doll lifted itself from the desk and floated across the room to her hand.
She nearly dropped it in surprise.
Telekinesis?
Just like the dragon fruit.
What else could she move?
She glanced at the pad, in its charger. It came tumbling across the room, straight at her forehead. She ducked, and it bounced off the wall behind her, falling onto the bunk.
It should have fallen up or floated. She thought again, and the pad floated upward, then into the middle of the room. She could see the patterns around it, the lines guiding it and molding it into shape. Gently she coaxed it back to its charger.
Could she open the door?
With a metallic clang the answer became readily apparent. The lights shut off, then on. The fridge moved toward her, opened up and flung a water pack, then rolled obediently back to its port. The door closed, softly this time.
She sighed. Didn’t even feel tired this time, unlike after the pitaya explosion incident in the mess earlier. Maybe with time they wouldn’t get tired at all. Or maybe it was just little things.
Or if they worked independently or together.
Together.
She looked at the doll in her hands.
The no-face still looked back. The colors—she could change them back to the way they had been. Yes, they did. Blue with yellow flowers and golden, flaxen hair.
No. She didn’t like the hair. Changed it back to brown, but a darker brown than before. Shorter, slightly wavy.
Mother.
A memory spoke again to her.
“Why are you crying, moya kroshka?”
“At school, Elke called me a bad name. Right in front of the others.”
“A bad name? What kind of name?”
“Pig! They called me Russian pig!”
“You’re not a pig, kroshka. But you are Russian. And German, too.”
“I don’t wanna be Russian! I want to be just like Elke!”
Just like Elke. Just like the other kids. Not special. She clutched the motanka.
Dreams of a six-year-old. She couldn’t even remember where the school was, or what Elke looked like. Only the pain, the hurt was real. Even now, two decades later, it still hurt.
Who was she?
She wasn’t Russian. She wasn’t German. Barely remembered her mother, hardly any memories of her father at all. Just the last few moments as they made her go to sleep in the life pod.
True to his word, Sergey had helped her to find out who her birth parents were. At first. He had retrieved their passports from the life pod and was able to search for their names in the UN database. Her father was a chemical engineer, her mother an exobiologist — maybe she had even known of Coop’s father, who knows. Her parents apparently met in Italy at some sort of international conglomerate-financed exhibition on terraforming. In fact, that’s where Riss was born. But she had no memories of Italy, and few of her childhood.
Before the accident.
They had been in the midst of a family move to the Moon, to join the terraforming team, when their shuttle experienced a sudden power failure. Riss was the only survivor. A dozen others were never found again, presumed dead following the spaceship’s violent decompressive rupture.
But that hadn’t told her who they were.
German father, Russian mother. But those were just names of countries, just nationalities. Who were they? What were they like?
What did that make her?
“You can see any face you like on motanka,” Sergey told her, in the months after he gave her the doll. “That way she will grow with you, as you also grow.”
Any face?
She looked at the doll. The crossed-out visage began to shift, softening features. Textures like slightly darkened skin, high cheekbones. Proud smile. Eyes…
Lena.
She stifled a yelp and the doll leapt back to the desk.
The cross returned. Staring back at her from across the room.
She relaxed and exhaled, just then realizing she had been holding her breath.
The doll. It was just like her. Featureless. Easily changed. Controlled.
Was that why these new abilities scared her?
Or was it something that she was afraid to face?
She closed her eyes and stretched out a hand. The fields seemed to interact with her fingers, slipping between them. Around them. Through them. It was as if all she had to do was touch the fields, tease apart the threads of atoms and sub particles. Expand into the space between quarks and bosons.
The space holding the stuff of the universe together in delicate harmony.
Is this what they all were? What she really was? Empty space?
No. Not just space. A tension. A balance between matter and energy.
Light and dark. Being and not-being.
She (who was she?) stretched her fingers (what were they?) through threads (were they really threads? streams? filaments of subatomic connections?), touched another searcher, seeking answers like herself (self? unself?).
A familiar feeling, part dark part light, laughter and sadness.
Sanvi? Who was that? Riss? The same? Different?
Aspects of the same universe, elements and combinations of energy condensed, vibrating, expanding, contracting, interacting.
Aware of itself / herself / themselves.
Separate but together. Connected. Sharing space.
Combined. Intertwined.
Joy. Pure bliss. Beyond the physical. Beyond…
A shock of recognition.
The room came back into focus. Her outstretched hand briefly glowed, luminescent, fingers trembling as if by a sudden jolt.
Lungs remembered to breathe.
Inhale, exhale. Eyelids blinked.
Riss. She was Riss. Sanvi was another person.
But connected.
Riss sat back on the bunk, brushing back tears with the back of a hand.
Why was she crying? The experience hadn’t been painful. She tried to recall the sensations, but came up blank.
Only the separation remained. And a dim perception of the separateness of others in their own compartments.
She could no longer tell whether her crew were asleep or awake. The Artemis whispered to her. The autopilot stayed steady on its inbound course. Two more days, at least. Space was vast.
Physical space, between solar objects. Perhaps not so vast between people.
A wave of exhaustion came over her. Sleepily she beckoned for the pad again. It came to her. Programmed a wake-up alarm. Returned it. Fell back on the bed.
No restraints this time. A brief smile lingered on her face.
She had no more need for restraints.
Next: Bringer of Light, Chapter 25: Transit—Transjovial to Hunting Grounds. The Artemis comes home…to a surprise.
While the Artemis crew continues its long journey back from Neptune, they are unaware of events taking place on Mars, Ceres, and closer to home, Luna…
Luna Base was in lock-down mode.
Sirens blared around the Central Dome, as they would be blaring similarly in the other domed structures across the planetoid. Schools had sent all their students home with orders to lock their doors. Workers told to avoid all unnecessary contact to save electrical generation. Luna Police were out in force, robot sentinels at every section gate.
But the orderly lock down had already begun turning to chaos.
All but trapped in his conapt, Sergey pounded the unresponsive automated door.
“Open! Open, dammit!”
He paused to cough messily into a fist, then resumed pounding. Damned power outage. What in hell was going on?
He could hear hurried feet in the outside corridor, orders shouted.
Laser fire.
He shuddered, then composed himself. It was an unwelcome sound. No noise in space, but plenty inside the dome. He had forgotten what violence actually sounded like.
He rubbed the bruised knuckles of his right hand. Damn door.
Glanced at the comm panel on the wall next to it. Useless. Lock down meant no unnecessary comm channels open. As a retired captain — regardless of the respect shown him by the Lunar Base Council — he wasn’t considered necessary.
He trembled in frustration. Useless old man. Damn it all.
What the hell was going on?
Someone was now pounding on the other side of the door. A muffled voice.
“Get me out!” he roared in response. No idea what the other voice had said.
A whining pitch seemed to emanate from inside the door. He took a few steps back.
Cutters.
The noise increased. He took several steps back, stumbled over the dining table, knocked over the chair. A brilliant light erupted from the door as the cutter broke through, drawing a white hot vertical line.
Sergey cursed, grabbing the table with one hand. He stood shakily, keeping one eye on the door. The other hand self-consciously searched for a sidearm that he no longer carried. He clenched both fists and waited. They wouldn’t take him without a—
The line complete, a gloved hand shoved the middle portion of the door out. It fell to the floor with a dull thud. “Captain Bardish. Captain, are you unhurt?”
“Yes. Yes, I am fine. What is this ruckus?”
“Captain, please stand back as we open the door.”
Two more gloved hands appeared, thrust inside the door itself up to the elbow. A snap as the circuit was broken, a hiss of released air pressure. The door slid open and two men stepped through it, tazer rifles pointed at him. Luna Base police?
“Sir, you will come with us,” a voice said from behind them. Sergey squinted at its owner. A young man, thin and tall. Goggles covered what probably were artificial eyes. Luna-born.
“What is this?”
“Captain, my orders are to bring you, unharmed, to the Luna Council Chamber. You will please come with us. Now.”
Something wasn’t right. Sergey shrugged and raised his hands.
And then quickly brought them down on the weapon of the nearest officer. Sergey lowered his shoulder into the surprised officer’s chest and grabbed the rifle.
No sooner had he done so, four hands grabbed him from behind. He struggled but only for a moment.
“I was told you might be unwilling to come,” the young officer said. “But we have no wish to hurt you. You will come with us.”
Sergey paused, trying to identify the man. He did not know him. He sighed and hung his head. He did not know many things, it appeared.
“What is going on?” he asked.
“A coup,” the officer responded. He nodded to the other men. “Let’s go. Eyes open.”
They led Sergey through off-white corridors from one section of a residential building to another. It seemed to Sergey that they were avoiding leaving the conapt complex for some reason. Outside the buildings sporadic tazerfire could be heard from time to time, and Sergey thought he felt the ground shake at least once or twice. Explosions?
At the end of one corridor, the group ascended four flights of stairs. Sergey felt his heart pound faster and he began to wheeze. They stopped at a large metal door bearing the words “Upper Dome Access – Restricted.” No window, wheel in the middle. Wall panel chest-high, probably the code pad.
Strange, he thought. Such doors were now archaic. After the terraforming, there was no need. Where were they?
He placed both palms on the top of bent knees, inhaling and exhaling slowly.
“Captain Bardish, are you having trouble breathing?”
“Hmf. Whatever gave you such an idea?”
He shook his head and waved a hand. “I am fine. Just a moment to recover.”
As he eyed the door, he felt a hand on his back.
“I strongly urge you not to run. The situation outside is dangerous.”
Sergey looked over his shoulder and cocked an eyebrow.
“I am in no condition to run, young man,” he said in what he hoped was a convincing voice. “I may have new kidneys and a reconstructed liver but I have only original leg muscles.”
The young officer nodded, but at the time drew out his tazer pistol with one hand. With the other he input the access code on the wall panel. He gestured. Another officer stepped in front of Sergey, turned the wheel to the left, then stepped back.
“Captain. After you.”
Sergey hesitated, then pushed the door. He took a step through the open doorway into near pitch-black. Sunlight rarely reached the bottom of habitation craters, but still, things were much darker than they should be. Above, he could not see where the dome ought to have been. They must be outside, then, on the surface.
A thin stream of light from above the doorway spread across the desert-like Lunascape. He heard the lapping of water, the saline odor of the sea. Several meters away was the outline of a ship of some sort.
A hunter ship.
He suddenly thought, Me, first? In a dangerous situation? Something was not—
Gunfire erupted behind him. Someone shoved him forward, violently, and he heard “Get down!”
He staggered forward a few paces, then, without looking back, charged for the ship. More gunfire, then the sounds of hand to hand fighting behind him. He reached the ship and flung himself under the bow. Definitely a hunter ship, he noticed at a glance. Altered for surface landing.
There were one or two more shots back at the door. He covered his head with his hands and waited. One minute became five. Or ten. He couldn’t tell.
“Captain!”
He raised his head but stayed prone.
“Captain Bardish! Are you unhurt?”
He didn’t recognize the voice, but he had begun to shiver and knew he didn’t stand much chance outside against a party of unknown assailants. The worse they could do was shoot him.
“H, here,” he called, then spat out some lunar sand. He shook his head and slowly extracted himself from underneath the ship. “Over here!”
He raised his hands. Three lights approached. One shone directly at his face, forcing him to squint his eyes.
“Captain Bardish, are you unhurt?”
“I’m fine,” he snapped. “Who the hell are you and what do you want?”
“Luna Base Police, sir.”
“Luna what?”
He lowered his hands. The light also lowered and he could finally see the three in front of him. They wore Luna Base Police uniforms, just like the people who had brought him out of his conapt.
“We had a tip that someone might try to illegally break you out of the lock down. Our apologies for not arriving sooner.”
He looked suspiciously at the three. Like the other men he had assumed were also police, the three had tazer rifles. In addition, the leader wore a sash over his left shoulder and had two stars on his helmet.
“May I ask for identification?” Sergey asked, looking from officer to officer.
The leader replaced his weapon into its holster and withdrew a badge from a sleeve pocket. “Lieutenant Sanchez. Section 2B, unit 11. Would you follow us to a safe location, Captain?”
“Safe?”
“The residential areas are obviously too dangerous.”
“So you are, you are arresting me?”
“No, sir,” Sanchez said, replacing the badge and withdrawing the tazer again. “We are escorting you.”
He motioned for his companions to lead Sergey back inside and touched a strip on his inside left forearm. As Sergey followed the (he presumed) actual police escort back to the door, he glanced back. Sanchez was evidently talking to someone over his helmet mic while gesturing to the ship. Probably asking for orders what to do with it.
They reentered the building and he heard the blaring sirens. Down the stairs again, this time a little more gingerly.
What in god’s name was going on? Sergey wondered, shaking his head.
He didn’t know who to trust, but he did know that there was very little he could do about it.
At least whoever was involved in this “coup,” if it was one, seemed more interested in keeping him safe and alive. Even if it meant keeping him prisoner.
He frowned. Who would want to capture him? He had little influence on Luna. Not even on the Council.
Despite what Weng thought.
Sergey nearly smiled at the memory. Just a short while, it seemed, Weng had asked to meet him. In a reading room in his office building. Always while drinking that disgusting soya coffee. Asking Sergey to put it a good word for him with the Council, get him on to a water reclamation, water processing team, something like that. But on Mars.
Why Mars? Wasn’t Luna what he had wanted? After all, this is where he met Clarissa. Where Sergey, his future father-in-law, had already managed to get him into a prestigious design firm?
“This place has no soul, Sergey,” Weng told him. “It looks alive, but the Moon is a dead place. We have terraformed it, thanks to you, but it is still lifeless.”
Despite the green grass and trees, Sergey realized, at last. That wasn’t what Weng meant.
He came out of his reverie. Sanchez had disappeared. The three remaining members of the group had crossed into another building, one he had rarely visited after retirement.
The administrative sector.
Police streamed around them in the corridors, doors here and there rapidly opening and officers entering and leaving in haste. Sergey recognized the security station center, spaceport ops, customs, even the communications and computer maintenance divisions.
Ach, he thought. They had changed the color back to bland Luna beige.
“This way, Captain,” an officer gestured, opening a door marked “Conference Room.”
“Where did Lieutenant Sanchez go?” Sergey asked.
“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know. Please enter the room and wait.”
Sergey hesitated, then shrugged and walked in. The door closed behind him. He turned back, ready to try the lock, then shrugged again. It made no difference. May as well wait and see what they wanted with him.
He looked around the room. Non-descript, typical military standard. Gray office chairs, black ovular table with 3D imager in the center. Digital white board on two walls. No decorations or windows.
No exit door.
A younger man might have tried to squeeze through the ventilation grid embedded in the wall, near the ceiling.
A younger man…
He sighed and pulled out a chair. It looked as if it might be a while.
Next:Bringer of Light, Chapter 24: The Artemis—Transjovial, in which Riss experiences the fields, and something else…
…while light cannot escape a black hole, its extreme gravity warps space around it, which allows light to “echo,” bending around the back of the object. Thanks to this strange phenomenon, astronomers have, for the first time, observed the light from behind a black hole.
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