Frontier: Book One - The Space Cadets Page 5

  “That is the question,” said Abby finally. “And the one we’re working on answering.”

  “By going out there. By looking for ourselves,” said Aisha, nodding. “It makes sense.”

  Soo-Kyung furrowed her eyebrows. “Does it?”

  The teacher looked to her again. “What do you mean?”

  “If they do exist, and they’ve not visited, there’s a good chance we want it that way, isn’t there? I mean, we’ve been listening for radio signals for years and have heard nothing. Why is that?”

  “There are many reasons that could be so,” said Abby. “And the most likely explanation would be that most civilizations are like ours, if they exist, and that they’ve only used radio waves for communication for a very short space of time. So, say a civilization has used them for a hundred years. That means there’s only a one-hundred-year window in which they would reach us. If a civilization is around for, say, ten thousand years, that’s only one percent of their civilization time that they use the waves.”

  She looked around the room. “It gets more complex when you think of distance,” she added. “Say that civilization is fifty light years away. If they reached the ability to produce radio waves one hundred fifty-one or more years before we started listening for them, then those waves would have passed us right by, and we’d never know they existed.”

  Aisha shrugged “So listening for radio waves is--”

  “Like hunting for a needle in a haystack the size of the moon.”

  ***

  There was a buzz around the lunchroom as the new students walked in. Some looked on and sneered, and Aisha more than once heard words like “rabble.”

  She took an empty table and was joined by Soo-Kyung. Some of the other new students joined them, while others looked around for a different table.

  Oblivious, Soo-Kyung wolfed her food. “Surprisingly not bad,” she said between mouthfuls.

  “What happened last night?” Aisha was surprised to hear her own voice as she blurted out the question. Since the night before -- and Soo-Kyung’s response to Seamus -- it had been burning inside her. She’d been afraid to ask. There was something intimidating about the Korean girl.

  Soo-Kyung looked up at her, and Aisha could see a decision being made behind her eyes. Then, something changed, and she went back to her lunch without saying anything further.

  ***

  For the rest of the day, they were paraded from class to class. They saw more of the station, and explored the various habitats. While they lived in the rims of the wheels that made up the station because of gravity effects, there was a lot more to the station. They accessed these areas by climbing ‘up’ from the rims towards the central hub.

  “As we climb,” said Mister Porter, their primary attendant, “the effect is unusual, because you’ll feel yourself getting lighter. The wheels that made up the station are made up of concentric circles, with the outermost operating at one gee.”

  Aisha nodded, remembering how astronauts measured gravity. 1G, or one gee, was the equivalent of the surface of the Earth. Gravity was measured relative to that, so that with the moon having approximately one-sixth of the gravity of the Earth, so they called it 1/6th G.

  “At the hub of the wheel,” continued Porter, “there is no rotation, so you’re weightless, like in outer space.”

  “What happens there?”

  “First-year cadets,” he continued, “will fly training craft in that space. While some of you might be familiar with flight on a planet’s surface, doing it in space is very different. So, the safest way to train is at the central hub of the station where we have a close simulation.”

  One student was incredulous, and Aisha noticed the French flag on his breast. “We learn to fly?”

  “Oh yes,” said Porter. “And a whole lot more besides!”

  For the whole trip Soo-Kyung walked no more than an arm’s length from Aisha, but didn’t say a word. She caught her friend’s eye from time to time, but the Korean girl just gave a downward look that almost appeared to be a bow. Aisha didn’t push it.

  ***

  Classes finished for the day, they returned to their quarters, exhausted. Smith was waiting at the door, with Seamus nowhere to be seen. There was a flicker across Soo-Kyung’s face that almost looked like disappointment.

  Smith nodded to her, and she returned the gesture. “Can we talk,” he said to Aisha, “alone?”

  For the first time that day, Aisha saw a small smile on Soo-Kyung’s face. She nodded, and entered the apartment, leaving Aisha with Smith.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” he said. “I think we came across a bit strong. I hope we didn’t scare you.”

  “It’s okay,” said Aisha, realizing that she meant it, but also curious about what had spooked Soo-Kyung. “But don’t talk about Soo-Kyung, I want to talk with her directly.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Walk?”

  “I don’t even know your name.”

  He smiled. “You’re right. Patrice.”

  “Isn’t that a girl’s name?”

  He laughed. “Not in Canada, apparently!”

  She liked his natural laugh. There was something so sincere and unguarded about it.

  “So what do you want to talk about?”

  “I have been here for almost six years,” he said. “Almost since the beginning. There were only two wheels then.”

  “You must have been, what, eleven?”

  “Ten,” he said. “But my parents thought it was best for me to come here.”

  “That’s rough. You must miss them.”

  “I do, and I don’t,” he said. “I rarely saw them when I was Earth-side, as I was always carted off to various boarding schools. I think I miss my sister most of all.”

  “I’m sorry, that must be hard,” said Aisha, putting her hand on his arm gently for a moment.

  “I guess I’m used to it,” he said. “That’s the life of a rich kid.”

  Aisha nodded. “You were one of the first ones here, so I figured you must be.”

  “Not just rich,” said Patrice. “My family is one of the richest in the world. They funded much of the development of this place.”

  She resisted the impulse to say ‘wow’, and instead defiantly burst out, “Am I supposed to be impressed?”

  “I’m glad you aren’t,” he said. “Money is a fleeting thing after all.”

  “So why are you telling me this?”

  He sat on a small bench, and she joined him. There was a window in the floor in front of them, and they watched as the Earth slowly moved into view. Through the clouds, Aisha could make out the Indian subcontinent. In the twilight, lights were on in the cities, except for the Punjab region in the north. There, like in Korea, a nuclear exchange had taken place, and several cities were piles of radioactive rubble.

  “My family made their money by understanding the needs of the many, and selling it to them, at a huge profit. They’ve done this for generations, and then they just…”

  “Just what?”

  “Liquidated it all, and funded this.”

  “Why?”

  “That, indeed, is the question.”

  “Well, they’re your family.”

  “And if they’d tell anybody, they’d tell me, is that it?”

  “Yes.”

  He paused, breathed deeply. Aisha must have hit a nerve. She regretted it, but before she could say anything he spoke. “I wish it were that simple.”

  Trying to be more gentle, but still curious, she sat closer to him, and looked him in the eye. “Did you ask?”

  “You don’t just barge in and ask your father why he blew hundreds of billions of dollars and several generations’ worth of family wealth on a Space program.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not supposed to know. It’s supposed to be a secret. As far as all the shareholders of his companies are concerned, they are still sitting on a big pile of cash.”

  “So he took their money?�
� She was surprised at her own snarky comment, but it just leapt out of her mouth.

  “Technically, it’s not theirs. They bought stocks with it, and he used the money from the various companies to do this. Most of which was his own.”

  “Technically.”

  “I don’t want to argue with you, Aisha,” he said, sighing. “I know that much of this is distasteful to you. It’s distasteful to me also. I’m not like him. I’m not like the rest of them.”

  “But you benefit from it, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but the difference is that I aim to share that benefit.”

  “That’s why you’re talking to the first black girl who came through open enrollment, is that it? Spread a little charity, spread a little love to make yourself feel better. Well I don’t--”

  His voice broke in anger. “Stop!”

  He was usually so gentle-spoken that the venom in his voice stopped her cold.

  The look of shock and hurt in his eyes made her heart flutter. “If you are such a poor judge of character, then I was wrong about you. I was wrong to do this, and I should just--”

  She put her hand on his arm. His eyes met hers again, and she thought he would cry.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to…”

  He exhaled, and looked downwards at the Earth as it curved below.

  “Don’t hate me because of who my family are. Judge me for myself.”

  She put her hand on his back, and stroked it lightly. “I will,” she said. “I will.”

  She saw a tear drip onto the glass, like it was raining on the Earth.

  “That hurt,” is all he could say. “I didn’t think it would ever hurt that bad, but it hurt.”

  She sat a little closer to him, and put her arm around his shoulder. He had lived such a life of privilege. At first, she felt resentment that they were in this situation, but then she was overcome by a wave of compassion. As her hand rested on his shoulder, she could begin to understand. All the good things he had in his life were a sham. It was nothing about him, and everything about his wealth. Nobody saw him. They saw who his family was, and what they were capable of.

  And here, he had begun to open up to her, and she rejected him because of all that.

  “You don’t do that a lot, do you,” she finally asked.

  “Do what?”

  “Open up like that.”

  “First time.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why me? Why now?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t think I could feel like this, but I feel so comfortable around you. So relaxed. I feel like I can trust you.”

  “You can. Even though I didn’t show it right now. But you can.”

  He looked at her, sideways. His eyes were red, and his nose was running. Surprised at the intimacy of the move, she put her sleeve over her hand and wiped his face. She felt herself tearing up.

  “I’m really sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  “Generations of people like me screwing over people like you came over you,” he said quietly. “I think that can all end, and I want to be a part of it.”

  “How?”

  “This place,” he said. “I don’t think anybody really knows what’s going on here. Nobody here is exactly who they seem.”

  “Except you?”

  He laughed ironically. “Especially me.”

  She put her hands on her knees and looked at her feet. “Why am I here?”

  “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I thought I had figured out some of their plans. The consortium of people who pushed the world to build this place, including my father. I thought that open enrollment would give us a clue.”

  “How?”

  “By looking at who they choose and why they choose them, it might give an idea about their intent.”

  “What did you find?”

  “That most of the kids they brought up were brilliant. Major assets that wouldn’t make it in the ‘real world’ because they couldn’t afford the Harvards or Stanfords of the world.”

  “Most of them?”

  “Yes. There were two mysteries.”

  “Two?”

  “Yes, two. Soo-Kyung was the first. She has a very interesting history. Seamus is an amazing hacker, and he was able to dig into everyone. Her background blew his mind.”

  There was a sinking feeling in her stomach. “And the other?”

  “You, of course.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? What made me a mystery?”

  “When we tried to investigate you, your records were sealed so tight, Seamus couldn’t break into them. According to him, even God couldn’t decrypt them.”

  Chapter 9

  Flight

  The flash didn’t kill me right away. But the radiation from it zipped through my body at close to the speed of light. I didn’t feel it, of course, and most of it went through me like tiny fish through a large net. But not all of it. A little here, and a little there hit targets. It caused cells to unravel, and new things to grow. Cancers. And just as if it had incinerated me on the spot, I was a dead man. But God had given me the gift of time. Time to do something with what was left of my life. Time to get things ready for you to have the life I could never have. And time to write this letter to you, my dear daughter…

  They had a few minutes before class, and Aisha wanted to make the most of it. Patrice had asked her if she would join him. He had said he had something very special to share with her.

  Soo-Kyung had teased her all night, speculating about all the things Patrice might do. “Maybe he’ll even ask you to marry him,” she laughed, before Aisha took her down with a well-aimed pillow.

  But she was curious. It wasn’t like Patrice to be so secretive. After breakfast, he led her away, and down the corridors. She couldn’t help but notice Seamus’ raised eyebrows and Soo-Kyung’s hand covering her mouth.

  “Look, I don’t normally do stuff like this, so don’t judge me,” said Patrice, as he led her through a maintenance hatch.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Not here,” he said. She stopped in her tracks.

  He grabbed her hand and her heart skipped a beat. He pulled gently, and she took a couple of steps before stopping again.

  “What? What is it?” His eyes searched hers. She felt her cheeks flush.

  His eyes widened. “Oh no!” He laughed and blushed a little. “It’s not that!”

  Somewhere, deep down, she felt a little disappointed at how vigorously he said it, almost as if it was something he despised.

  “Not like I wouldn’t like to,” he said, winking. “But I respect you way too much to ask you for that.”

  “Then what?”

  “We’re almost there.”

  She followed him as he walked on. He hadn’t let go of her hand. A glow moved up her arm into her heart and burst out as a smile.

  “Here we are!”

  “A closet?”

  “Not just any closet, check this out.”

  He palmed the lock, and it opened. Inside was a monitor. Beside it a communications pad.

  “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Yep,” he said. “Seamus and I cobbled it together, and hacked together a downlink. It allows me to call someone very special to me.”

  “Who?”

  The face of a young girl appeared on the screen. “Sophie, this is Aisha. The one I told you about.”

  He turned to Aisha. “Aisha, this is Sophie, the most precious person in the world to me. My sister.”

  Sophie smiled. She had the same angelic looks as her brother.

  “She’s pretty,” said Sophie. “I can see why you like her.”

  “She’s more than just pretty.”

  “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “Otherwise you wouldn’t like her. Hello Aisha,” she said, smiling. “I think we are going to be best friends.”

  ***
>
  For the rest of the day, Aisha felt like she was glowing. Sophie was clearly very important to Patrice -- to the extent that he risked getting kicked out of school so he could stay in touch with her. And he had shared this with Aisha. She could see why he loved Sophie so much. She had his wit, his looks, and from the brief time she spent chatting, it was clear that Sophie’s brain was off the charts.

  “She’s no spoiled rich kid, that’s for sure,” said Patrice. “I just hope that she can be who she is capable of being. That the world we will build will be the one that she can enjoy.”

  And just like that Aisha embraced him. Held him close.

  “We will,” she said. “We’ll do it together.”

  ***

  She didn’t know if it was because of their schedules, or because they were afraid of cover being blown, but she and Soo-Kyung didn’t see much of Patrice or Seamus for the next few days. Maybe it was a good thing -- there was just so much to take in. The school was hitting them hard with science, mostly physics, and mostly practical.

  Not for the first time, she wondered why they spent so much time in labs, when they were up in space. Mister Stevens, their lab master, had them working on experiments in understanding inertia and the transfer of force. Aisha swore that if she bounced one more metal ball off another steel block to measure the transfer of energy, she’d scream.

  It was relief when, at the end of class, their form master entered. He was a tall man with a craggy face who only wanted to be called Simms.

  “Today, Cadets, we have a little surprise for you. We’re going to the hub, where you’re going to get your first taste of being a real cadet. So take off your lab coats and safety glasses, and rank up behind me!”

  They followed him, in rank, up ladders through section after section as they approached the hub. With a giddy feeling, Aisha felt herself get lighter and lighter as the gravity reduced. Finally, they entered through a hatch into a wide, empty area.

  She was floating again, weightless as she looked down the long space of the central cylinder that acted as the hub for each of the wheels that made up the station.

  “The cylinders interconnect here, and even though each wheel’s rim may spin at a different speed, there’s no spin at all,” said Simms, matter-of-factly. “So it’s perfect for simulating space-like experiences without risking you guys out there in hard vacuum.”