Contingency Page 5

  Chapter 4

  The recording was of an old historical-fiction movie. It was set in the days before matter–antimatter reactors had been made stable and small enough to be placed on starships. There had been no way to provide bursts of violent power strong enough to create folds in space and to send ships cruising at near light speeds, with trajectories through the folds resulting in overall speeds much faster than that of light.

  The film was from the time when men had to use nuclear powered engines to zip around their own home star, bravely exploring Mars, Jupiter, and the rest of the celestial bodies. Frontier colonies had been set up on the worlds that could provide some sort of resource, such as Jupiter’s moons Titan and Ganymede and even Europa for its significant water deposits.

  This story told of an expedition to the moon Titan. The introduction began, and a science team prepared to leave the Jupiter station as it slowly orbited the massive giant. The few fans in the room enjoyed the thrill of not being able to interact with or change the film. The story swept them up and took them were it willed. Unlike the neural-image transfer entertainment, you would have to be exposed to elements you might not particularly enjoy.

  The story evolved, and the moon began giving off anomalous transmissions. The team advanced into a cave system on the moon and was amazed to find alien technology inside. Upon analyzing it, they discovered that it was recent and that an alien species was dealing with the affairs of mankind. Through heroic sacrifice they were able to sabotage the alien installment and the alien ship. The film closed with the heroes returning to their orbital base, grieving the loss of some of their comrades.

  “I’m glad they still have these; all virtual reality stories take all the ‘reality’ out of a story,” Jerald muttered to the man who had stood up from his seat to the left. “A tale does not have to end exactly the way you want it to. You give it credit for the journey and the telling."

  The man responded calmly, “I guess it’s more of a thrill if the person experiencing it feels important, and has control over his surroundings. Everyone has it in their blood to be egocentric and bend the world to their will; unfortunately, we can’t do that in the real world. That’s why we’ve got neural-transfer: to create an entirely new existence, one where we are the masters, where we are in control, one directly inside of our brains.”

  "Well yes, I guess everyone looks for something different in entertainment," Jerald responded thoughtfully.

  “Yes, and the masses do prefer to feel significant. If afraid the era of holovision is a dying one,” the stranger chuckled.

  "I’m sorry if I was imposing, I’m quite a fanatic."

  "Don't worry, so few nowadays take the time to go back into history and tradition that it is nice to meet another who cares about these things."

  "Glad. Jerald Warren." He reached out his hand with a bonne homme smile on his face.

  "Darius Targen; glad to meet you.” Darius shook the other man’s hand heartily. “Do you work here on Galar Space Facility?"

  "No, but I'm always in the vicinity, my ship is in the docks for a tune-up. What brings you here?"

  "Wow, a captain; I'm here myself to report to my first term of command," Darius replied lightheartedly.

  "Ahem,” Jerald cleared his throat with a smile, “Senior captain. I’ve been with the EIF for quite some time."

  “My apologies,” Darius said with a very slight bow. Just then, Jerald’s wrist attachment gave him a pulse. “Excuse me, I have to go,” he quickly said.

  “It was a pleasure meeting you,” Darius quickly replied, then bade him farewell. He lingered tentatively a moment later at the exit of the display room, then in rapid strides left the room and was lost in the crowd.

  After spending a few days in the threadbare living compartments of the Galar Space Facility, Darius was glad to be on his feet again. The day had come for him to report to his newly fabricated vessel. He checked his wrist attachment for details and was reminded that the Vigilante was being held in Docking Bay E-59.

  He ate his first meal from the small, rectangular container it came in. The corners were smoothed out for aesthetic and practical use, but other than that the box was quite volume efficient. The meal consisted of a standardized thick substance, with an additional fruit or vegetable and vitamin and mineral supplements. The substance was viscous and contained a thorough mixture of proteins, carbohydrates, and amounts of all vital components to a human diet. The addition of one or two vegetables or fruits gave a small pinch of luxury to a meal that would be otherwise extremely miserly. The supplemental pills gave the finishing touch, which guaranteed all people living in space-bound facilities would be well fed and energized.

  Darius proceeded to seal his handbag and turned around to check his bedding and storage unit for anything he may have forgotten. Convinced he had all his belongings, he turned and left the housing section and proceeded towards the internal transport. He walked briskly past several tight, densely populated hallways. People were busy at every station available; chatter filled the air and reverberated through the walls. His path took him to a large, open space where several pods were coming and going. Each transport stopped briefly at one of several docking locations, displayed its destination, waited briefly for all members to board, then brusquely shut its doors and sped away. These transport pods were flying in several directions, some fell straight downwards towards the space station’s docks, some flew upwards to the industrial area, some carried passengers left, right, or deeper into the station.

  The area abounded with activity as people entered, left, or stood by the terminals. Darius quickly scanned the displays for a transport to the docking area and spotted one towards his right. After a few minutes wait, the transport arrived and he stepped on board. A few other people shared the pod with him. Among them, none were too remarkable. All wore the tinted black uniform of the EIF. Some had two large parallel lines coming down across each half of the body. The color of these two lines on the upper part of the uniform provided easy identification of the wearer’s specialization. Two gray lines represented the industrial and fabrications sector, two blue lines represented general engineering, two dull red lines represented the military sector, and two white lines symbolized the combined scientific corps.

  The pod left the station and zipped along its line. Although Darius had boarded it upright, its line had bent and was now horizontally positioned in front of them. The pod moved forward with its tip lying flat. The people inside, however, were still standing normally. They were kept in place by means of the powered floor, even if compared to the rest of the station they were standing horizontally.

  The transport’s voice came out into the pod. “Arriving now at Docks: Sections D, E.”

  A few moments later the pod came to a rest, and the doors slid open for the people to exit. The diverse mass quickly left the pod and then scattered away in all directions. There were large, metallic floor bridges that spread out in all directions like one large spider’s web. The wide black metallic beams occupied all space in three dimensions, to large distances around the terminal. There were platform movers that allowed people to quickly access the areas they intended to reach. They moved back and forth as well as up and down, intertwining the sprawl beautifully. Darius pulled up a map on his wrist attachment and had it magnified through the device’s holo-projector into the space in front of him so he could get his bearings. He easily located the -E- cluster of docking bays and searched for the fifties. He eventually found Group E-59 and started walking. His shoes made loud strikes on the plates beneath him, so he trod more lightly. He made his way up and down, across the maze of metal, and after some time reached his destination.

  E-59 housed a handful of ships, all arranged side by side outside the reinforced glass barrier. The metal walkway he was moving along was the last area inside the atmosphere-filled zone. Each ship had a walkway extended directly to its entrance. The ship itself was firmly bound to the dock but remained outside, in th
e vacuum of the outer dock. A strong connector kept the ship’s entrance in alignment to the walkway from the atmosphere zone.

  The wall that separated the two zones was thick, yet through glass gave generous views of the outside dock. Data and dock controls were transferred automatically between the connectors and beams that doubled as communication paths and as supports. Darius advanced to the gateway marked E-59.4 and entered his information at the panel under the small screen on the right side of the connector. He swiped his hand, and the computer recognized his identity. “Welcome Captain Targen,” the screen displayed, and after a few moments the door unlatched and slid apart, revealing the ship’s interior. The inside would be empty; he was the first one to arrive.