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  Worlds Apart Book Three: Bodicéa

  Copyright © 2003, 2007 James G. Wittenbach www.worlds-apart.net All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Wittenbach, James Worlds Apart Book 03: Bodicéa I. Title

  ISBN 0-0-9763384-0-8

  .

  CHAPTER ONE

  Despite certain reckless metaphors, space is not a final frontier. It is, in fact, no frontier it all. A frontier, by definition, is a boundary, a margin between the known and the unknown.

  Space, by definition, is nothing at all. Space is the absence of things, and the space between stars is empty beyond wanting, vast beyond measurement, and unknowable except to God.

  The average density of matter in interstellar space, for the most part, is something like one hydrogen atom for every thousand cubic meters. In star systems, where planets, comets, and other miscellaneous rocks are most populous, the average density is only marginally greater.

  Galaxies might collide and pass through one another without a single collision between stars or planets or even specks of dust, there being so much more space than things for space to be between. Save for a few anomalous sprinkles of matter adrift in the cosmic winds, the universe is a boundless vacancy, an immensity of nothingness beyond human contemplation.

  So, when the starburst pattern appears in one Empty Quarter of the cosmos, heralding the emergence of one of humanity’s great pathfinder ships, what exactly is being moved aside? If there is nothing there, then what structure must be warped and parted to allow the massive ship to depart the anarchic dimensions of hyperspace and re-enter the orderly universe of stars, gravity, humans, and the Fathomless Void. What is it that splits open to allow the mighty ship to emerge from chaos into well-ordered nothingness?

  A physicist and a philosopher would give the same answer, what Pegasus moves aside is whatever it is that holds the nothingness together.

  Pegaus – Main Bridge/Primary Command

  “…point-four-oh light days from the outer margin of system 12 822 Equuleus.” Lieutenant Navigator Eliza Jane Change reported as some of the interface gear peeled from her face and arms, revealing a smooth-skinned woman with straight black hair and hard-edged beauty.

  The rest of the bridge crew might have detected a note of satisfaction in her voice, but no pride of accomplishment was betrayed by the slightest play of a smile on the firm line of her mouth, or even a flash of light in her dark, almond-shaped eyes. The engineers and theoreticians who had designed the navigation systems for the Pathfinder ships predicted the ships would emerge 30 to 90 light days outside a system 90% of the time. She had beaten them, three for three now, and this was her closest approach yet, but to betray too much pride would have been a breach in the aura of seriousness she wore like armor.

  “Well done, lieutenant,” said Pegasus’s Commanding Officer, Captain William Keeler, a hearty fellow, whose bearing reflected a life of accustomed privilege and the routine satisfaction of appetites, both intellectual and gustatory. One of his hands was still bandaged from their last exploratory mission, to the very bizarre and dysfunctional world called Eden. In the course of his visit to the renowned hospitality planet, he had been attacked by winged guardsmen, ferocious beasts, vampires, and, worst of all, a breed of vile creature that had been driven to extinction on his own world millennia before … politicians.

  In the Captain’s good hand, he held his trademark ancient walking stick; a long thick pole of some strange alien material, covered with mysterious alien runes. As a weapon, the stick had served him well on that world. The crew had had their doubts about Keeler when he had been given command of their ship only a few days before launch. They had known only that he had been the chancellor and professor of history at the University of Sapphire at New Cleveland, that he was a Keeler who could trace his ancestry to the founding of the colony, and that he had turned down a place in the crew earlier when he had been passed over for command. He looked the part of the sinecured academic, large, almost middle-aged (a few wisps of gray at the temples), his gray eyes sparkled with intelligence. Two missions under his leadership had proven him to be more than any of them had expected.

  The slim figure of Executive Commander Goneril Lear stood in the forebridge of Primary Command (PC-1); a seldom-used vantage point , with shields that could be opened to view space directly. To the crew, she was more Keeler’s rival than First Officer, and the direction of the ship was a constant battle of wills between the laid-back former professor from Sapphire and the hard-charging Ministry bureaucrat from Republic. “Initial scans indicate we are 8.3

  degrees off the plane of the system,” she reported crisply, reading from the Astrogation report on her data pad. “If the University of Sapphire at New Cleveland Navigational Reconstruction team have come through for us again, we should find the ancient colony of Medea here.”

  “They haven’t let us down yet,” Keeler said, confidently. He looked up to his blond first officer, and wondered if her mention of his alma mater was an unusually unsubtle occasion of flattery. As usual, her expression was inscrutable. Whatever machinations were in progress behind those gray eyes he could not imagine, nor did he want to.

  “Shall I begin preparing the Surveyor probes?” Lear asked.

  “Say pretty please,” said the captain, and he waited for her response although he knew she never would. He turned back to his navigator. “Lieutenant Change, lay in a course for the inner system. Commander Lear, you may prepare your probes.” Lear ordered the lovely dark-haired woman at the science station, Specialist Kayliegh Driver, to prepare four probes for launch. Surveyor probes were long missiles, needle tipped with three large fins at the aft end surrounding their ion-drive engines. They reminded Keeler of a device used in recreational lawn games on his own world, and illegal for millennia on Lear’s.

  Keeler’s world was called Sapphire, a warm blue planet that was the original home of nearly half the crew. Lear’s world was a cold gray one called Republic, original home to nearly the other half. Neither half of the crew ever expected to see their home world ever again. They had left on a one-way mission to find the lost colonies of the Great Commonwealth, established during the two-thousand years when a triumphant humanity ruled over the galaxy and seeded every constellation with new communities of humankind. Before the Commonwealth had collapsed, it had planted a colony in the system dead ahead of them, and called it Medea, if their records were correct, of course.

  Keeler had done some research, while in hyperspace transit, on the origin of the name

  “Medea.” Medea was a mytho-historical figure of ancient Earth; a witch married to a powerful, charismatic, and deeply corrupt monarch, whom she had brought to power through her witchcraft. She routinely dispatched the Monarch’s enemies, and convinced the rest of the court to look the other way. When the Monarch had carnal relations with a chubby courtesan, Medea had her killed, but the Monarch was blamed for the crime. Challenged by the Court to account for some of his evil activities, the King explained that as horrible as his crimes were, letting his enemies come to power would be worse. Medea bewitched his court into agreeing with him and the Monarch was absolved.

  Eventually, the Monarch grew old and it was his time to leave. The Monarch’s chosen successor prepared to replace him, but the Monarch’s enemies usurped him. Medea and the Monarch fled in a chariot, drawn by winged dragons, pursued by their enemies. In order to delay the pursuit
, Medea killed her two daughters and cut the bodies into pieces, scattering the parts behind them. The pursuers had to stop and collect the dismembered bodies in order to give them proper burial, and so Medea and the Former Monarch escaped.

  Unable to remain away from power, Medea secured herself a place in the Imperial Senate.

  The monarch left her for another woman. Medea got revenge for the desertion by killing the new bride with a poisoned robe and tiara that burned the flesh from her body. The monarch died as well when he tried to embrace his dying bride. Ultimately, Medea became queen and brought ruin to her country.

  Keeler could not imagine why anyone would want to name a colony after such a figure, but who was he to judge?

  Until the ship found some evidence of current or previous human inhabitation, he would have little to do. (In a way, the ruins of a failed colony might be even more interesting than a surviving colony, he thought, not knowing how much he would regret the thought later.) He left science to his capable science teams, and operations to the ship’s capable technicians. His command abilities were only needed when some human intelligence made things complicated.

  His presence at this stage was primarily ceremonial.

  Keeler looked at the forward part of the PC-1, where the holographic display showed what was outside the ship, which, at the moment, was nothing. Traveling sixty odd light years and emerging within a day’s flight of your destination was really impressive from a statistical point of view, but it still meant a long dull lapse between emerging from hyperspace and mapping the nearby system. He looked around PC-1, and saw thirty or so people, earnestly attending to their critical functions. As usual, it was what he did not see that stood out most.

  “Where’s Phil?” the Commander asked.

  “Tactical Commander Miller?” Lear repeated, not for clarification, more out of her Republic-bred disdain for informality. Chief Tactical Officer, like all of the ship’s officers, had the explorer’s heart, the adventurer’s soul. Missing an emergence was almost unthinkable.

  Yet, standing at his post was Specialist Shayne American. A slim, dark skinned woman with close-cropped blond hair from the planet Republic. It was American who answered the Captain’s question. “Lt. Commander Miller remains on personal leave.” Keeler stared at her for a moment. “Still?”

  “Indefinitely,” Lear put in, disguising her glee less effectively than Eliza Jane Change her pride.

  Don’t be so confident, Keeler thought, and tapped his walking stick. “I would pay him a visit, but the last time I tried, he told me to go away or he’d lock me in an escape pod with a couple of mechanoids and make me watch bad holographic entertainments.”

  “Threatening a superior officer?” asked Lear.

  “I don’t think he meant it,” Keeler sighed. “Although, it is the kind of threat he would follow through on.”

  At Keeler’s side was a young operations specialist named David Alkema, a handsome piece of work, with ruddy cheeks, full lips, a slightly upturned nose, and thick black curls. Alkema, too, wore bandages from their adventure on Eden, although his wounds had been considerably less than his captain’s. As usual, Alkema had insight into what was up with Miller. “The ship’s rumor says something very bad and very personal happened to him on EdenWorld.”

  “Actually,” American muttered, “I heard it was when he got back from EdenWorld that the excrement met the ventilator.”

  “No gossip on the bridge,” Lear said, quietly but sternly.

  The ship had been twenty-five days in transit through Hyperspace. Miller had requested personal leave very early on, and had kept to himself ever since. Rumor had seen him talking with a Theologian Spiritual Advisor in one of the ship’s garden areas. Rumor had seen him sparring with an and/oroid in one of the ship’s gymnasia. Rumor had seen him sleepwalking naked through one of the Landing Bays. Rumor had seen him in an agro-botany bay sitting in a tree eating bananas. Rumor, apparently, had seen more of him than anyone in the crew.

  Everyone in the crew had seen the reports from EdenWorld, of how Miller had rescued escaped slaves and made the acquaintance of a strange exotic woman. They knew Captain Keeler’s landing party had suffered over 50% casualties. They knew of the beasts and guardsmen and monsters and it came as little surprise that something on the sick, sad little planet might have bitten Commander Miller in the mind. From what they had learned of Eden, there were so many freakish and terrifying things on that world that sooner or later, one thing or another was bound to give you the boogins.

  Pegasus – Fast Eddie’s Interstellar Slam-n-Jam (Deck Minus 221, Section 92:20)

  At the moment of emergence, the aforementioned Tactical Commander Miller was three hundred twenty one decks below the bridge, in what originally had been a tertiary auxiliary holding tank for contaminated water. It was being converted into a gathering place, where the crew might come to socialize, listen to bad music, eat worse food and imbibe unhealthy beverages; in short, a dive.

  Miller sat cross-legged on the floor, holding a crayola wand, staring at a blank corner of a wall that was covered with a vast mural of very unhappy-looking people. The detail of the scenery, the clothing, and the inanimate objects depicted in the mural was exquisitely realistic, in sharp contrast with the faces of the people, which were highly stylized, with exaggerated expressions of anguish and rapture. Even the ones who were supposed to be laughing looked like they were they were laughing more out of dementia than joy.

  The proprietor of this would-be dive was a young former technician third class who was determined to turn this into a meeting place for those in the ship’s company who craved less structured and aesthetically calculated entertainments than the ship’s recreation lounges provided. He had already persuaded some of his former colleagues from the landing bay to form a band, and he was planning on live cayenne music twice a week. Someone (a rather straight-edged and unimaginative Flight Core type) had also suggested singing contests using popular music from which the vocal tracks had been removed. It sounded barbarically uncool to Eddie Roebuck, a puffily handsome young man, with coffee-brown skin, who gave the impression he was always smirking at some private joke he dared not say out loud.

  Three ship-days after Pegasus had entered hyperspace, he had been surprised when the ship’s Chief Tactical Officer had appeared at the hatch with a crayola wand, asking if he could paint a mural. The same officer had earlier signed off on his request to use the space. As much as he wanted to refuse, that would have been rude and ungrateful. Besides, the officer in question was a Master of Pyrokinetic Art. Prior to becoming the officer in charge of all the ship’s weaponry, he had made a name for himself traveling around the planet Sapphire, destroying buildings and bridges, setting cities on fire and starting avalanches; holding a mirror up to nature and then smashing it, finding beauty in the shards. What was the worst that could happen? At least he had at least not asked to blow up the place.

  Now, Eddie stood back, looking over the mural. The Commander had done the faces last, but Eddie Roebuck had seen the direction this was taking for at least the last two weeks. He had spent that time working out precisely the most tactful way to convey his critique of the work in progress. He had settled on the wording last night. “Beauty, that is one brutal painting.”

  “It’s been a long time since I have worked in paints and colors, rather than explosives,” the commander replied. “Not since I was a boy – thirteen years old – on the side of my father’s barn. I did a trompe de l’oeil; milkbeasts and alfalfa. Looked pretty good. Cost me a month’s dessert and after-school privileges. In retrospect, I should have asked first, which is why I asked you before I began this time.”

  “Yeah, well,” said Eddie Roebuck. He found the mural difficult to look at. “You don’t think a painting like that is going to make people, you know, spider-freaked, do you?”

  “Spider-freaked?”

  “You know, like when you see a spider in a room and it freaks you out. Even after it’s gone, you’re al
l twitchy because you keep thinking there’s a spider around. Spider-freaked.” Miller’s thin, crew-cut head gave a slow nod, then he returned to his work.

  Eddie bit his lip, wiped his nose with the back of his hand, and tried a new and completely unpracticed approach. “What’s it supposed to be anyway?”

  “It’s a Graceland folk legend, a tale of betrayal and regret.”

  “Za, that sets the right atmosphere for a pub.” Eddie pointed to one particularly unhappy figure. “Who’s this guy who looks like somebody smelted his puppies?”

  “Lysander Grove, the key figure of this particular legend. A mask-woman stole his wife’s form, confused his mind and bedeviled him until he betrayed his marital vows. He was overcome with regret and threw himself into a well. His sons, because they had no father, grew up to be foolish and reckless, and lost all his lands.”

  “Any drinking, or singing, or other unrespectable tavern-house behavior in this story?”

  “Za, that’s how the foolishness of the sons is expressed.” He indicated the figures to the right of the middle of the mural. Three young men, one nearly passed out from booze, one surrounded by women, and a third recklessly steering some kind of vehicle into disaster as a small pork-beast leaped out of the way.

  “So long as its topical,” said Eddie Roebuck. “Maybe you can paint something happier on the other wall.”

  “Maybe.” Miller paused, cracked his shoulders, and returned to work.

  “You could do Land-Monsters playing quoits. Everybody loves that.”

  “Maybe,” Miller repeated.

  Eddie sighed. This was about as much conversation as Miller was typically good for. He hated the mural, but what could he do? Without Miller, he would have no permit to operate the dive. He walked back to the bar and began unpacking glasses.

  A few minutes later, the front hatch hissed open, and a woman walked in who, if she had shown up in any bar in New Halifax (Eddie Roebuck’s hometown on Sapphire) would have walked out owning the place. The flight suit she wore, normally no compliment to the human form, hugged all the best parts of her body in the best possible way. Her legs were long and slender and looked more like sculpture than anatomy. Her hips were sumptuously full, her breasts deliciously ripe, and the stretch between them lithesome and slim. Her hair was thick and blond and framed a face that God Himself could not have improved upon. She was the kind of woman men would pay just to look at, if that type of enterprise had existed in his culture.