THEN: 1969 A.D.
A seventeen year-old Benjamin Carter knelt on the shag-carpet in-front of the television-set in such a way his parents hadn't seen their son sit since he had been a small child; Ben had both fists propped under his chin; his mouth was half-open; his eyes were wide, filling with wonder...
"You won't ever forget this moment, Ben”. His father spoke from the sofa behind him. “This is going change the world.” His father's can of Budweiser stood half-full and forgotten on-top of his dinner-tray; his wife's hand was held tightly in both of his, compressed between two belts of white-knuckles.
Benjamin didn't turn around. He only stared forward into the television screen, his eyes still filling-up...
“One small step for man–”, Armstrong announced through the television-speakers. “–and one giant step for man-kind”.
Benjamin never forgot it.
NOW: 2360 A.D.
Benjamin Carter starred out of the port-hole above his bathroom sink, into deep space.
If not for the depth given by the stars, he might have thought the view of the universe before him was a flat panorama, wrapped around the TARSAC-VII's haul like a lamp-shade. He saw no planets, no astroid fields, no swirling celestial phenomena – only a landscape of penetrating emptiness. Pulsing behind those sheets of stars, and the seemingly planar blackness behind them, Benjamin sensed some ephemeral energy – a menacing vibration; expanding, then contracting, sending waves through the universe.
He didn't like space.
Planet-life suited Benjamin much better.
He touched the sensor beside the port-hole, then the glass in-front of him became a mirror; Benjamin saw the face of a three-hundred and seventy-four year-old man reflected back toward him, with no grey-hair or sagging-skin, no wrinkles or deep-furrows.
He began to spread shaving-cream over his unblemished cheeks.
PART ONE: Mission-Briefing
Benjamin dressed, then met Dave in the cafeteria, at the usual time.
Dave was a younger man, and like most of the TARSAC's crew, he had barely passed his hundredth year. Benjamin thought there was something unsettling about those generations born after the technology that promised them eternal-life, to which Dave belonged. These post-Fountain of Youth generations seemed unanchored from the stream of time, Benjamin thought, never concerned with yesterday's or tomorrow's. In a life with a potentially infinite number of each, the value behind the currency of time had been ultimately nullified.
“You aren't eating”, Dave said.
“You aren't eating”, Dave said.
Benjamin looked across the table at Dave, then pushed his plate of synthetic-eggs to the side.
“I know”, he said.
Benjamin turned around in his seat compulsively, then glanced over his shoulder; the wall of the cafeteria behind him was a curved pane of glass, exposing the empty, black landscape outside.
“Do you want something else to eat? I'm going for seconds.”
“No. Thanks, Dave.”
Dave picked up both plates. Benjamin nodded his thanks again, then Dave turned toward the food-dispensers.
Benjamin watched the stars out-side move slowly from the bottom of the long window toward the top; it looks like a Windows 95 screen-saver, he thought; and with the dislodging of that small, obscure pebble of memory, an avalanche of nostalgia began in-side Benjamin’s head.
When Benjamin had been young – actually young – his father had lead him by the hand into their backyard before his bed-times, to point at stars in the night-sky, and to trace the constellations for him with his finger. Then, the sight of the stars had been Benjamin's ultimate exhilaration. On his twelfth birthday – he couldn't comprehend living a life of only twelve-years now, but knew he had once – his father had given him a telescope to explore his new hobby. It was the spark that had lit decades of amateur astronomy.
Three-hundred and sixty years after being lead into the backyard by his father's hand, there was no longer any exhilaration left for Benjamin in the stars; now, it felt as though he was confronting the universe's cold indifference through the curved-glass of the cafeteria-window.
Several moments later, Dave sat down with another plate of easy-eggs, and a tall glass of orange-juice.
Benjamin asked: “Did you grow up on Earth, Dave?” Benjamin didn't think Dave was a colony boy; Dave was too mannered, his dialect too planetary.
Dave looked across the table at Benjamin, runny egg dripping off his fork. “Nope.” A mouthful. “I grew up on EC-I, actually; sector-seven. I was sixty when I first visited Earth – on a honeymoon, with my wife Zultraan. She bought a globe as a souvenir." Dave laughed, then took another mouthful of egg. “She’s still got it, I think. Why do you ask?”
“I thought you might be, sorry.”
“No. My grand-parents were among the first Japanese to immigrate to space colonies.", Dave said. "What do you mean 'you thought'? You never asked me before now.”
"You don't speak like someone who grew up on EC-I", Benjamin said. "I guess I just assumed."
“My parents raised me pretending we were still on Earth. Our house even had a synthetic lawn out-front. My father imported goods from Earth to EC-I for a living; stupid trivial shit people still missed from Earth, like garden gnomes. Our dinner table was actually made of wood. Do you believe that?" Dave laughed again, then stopped quickly; he seemed to come to the realization that Benjamin could believe it, and actually he could believe it rather easily. "I don't like wood”, Dave amended. “I don't like how it feels to touch." A shrug. "Anyway – when I was old enough, I ran away, and went into the illegal oxygen trade”, Dave said, before another mouthful. “Lots of oxygen farms on EC-I. It was a good job." Chewing. "So, you can tell me, Ben: did I miss out on much not growing up on Earth, really?”
“I don't know. Sometimes I think so, Dave. You don't seem to think so, though, and your probably right; we brought most of the good stuff with us." Ben raised his mug off the table slightly. "Like coffee. Could of done with leaving the garden gnomes behind, but what can you do about that now."
"I never understood those things."
Benjamin turned in his seat, and glanced out of the cafeteria window again, before asking: "Garden gnomes?"
"Yeah."
"There isn't anything to get. They were stupid on Earth, too."
“What's the matter, Ben? You aren't eating, and you keep looking out that window.” Benjamin opened his mouth, but said nothing; so Dave prompted him further: “Are you anxious to start seeing familiar sights? You won't for a couple more hours, you know.”
“I know. I just had a bad sleep last night." Dave looked satisfied with Benjamin's answer, but only some-what. Benjamin continued: "Besides, EC-I isn't nearly as familiar to me as it is to you.”
Dave finished his second plate of eggs in amiable silence. His appetite never ceased to startle Benjamin.
Benjamin sat back in his seat, nursed his coffee idly, and retreated for a short while into a dense, thick tangle of thoughts.
Benjamin's memory of his dream the previous night had faded away, almost entirely; all he could recall now was that, at a point, he had been watching the moon-landing on his parents small television-set. Like so many from his generation, the black and white image of Armstrong standing beside the American flag had been indelibly stamped on both his conscience and his sub-conscience; strong enough, apparently, to linger there for over three-hundred years. There had been more to the dream; Benjamin was sure of that, but he couldn't remember anything. He could feel the texture of the dream, still, like a mute after-taste, but the specifics and details were gone. Had Katharine been a part of it?, Benjamin asked himself inside his head. No memory surfaced in reply.
After a long silence, but not a particularly awkward one, Dave said: "There's a briefing in an hour, by the way."
- - -
Ben filled two mugs with coffee from the dispenser, then brought them back to the table.
“Thanks”. Dave reached for his mug. “Home sweet home, huh?”
A disc-shaped hologram of the Milky Way floated an inch above the table in-front of Dave, projected out of a small device that he had produced earlier from his coat-pocket. Dave swiped his hand at the hologram idly, sending it twirling in circles like a spinning-top. Dave stopped the holograms rotation with the touch of his finger, then double-tapped the miniature projection of a small, red planet.
An info screen appeared: “EARTH COLONY I”.
“I don't have family left on EC-I, like you do on Earth, but I'm excited to see home again. Most of my family is on EC-19, now; everyone moved with my father’s business, but – I guess I just miss the red skies.”
“I don’t have family anywhere.” Ben sat down with his mug of coffee in-front of him. "I out-lived my family."
“Oh, I’m sorry”, Dave said. “I thoug–”
“It’s okay”, Benjamin said, then he changed the subject: “You know, when I was young–”
“I don’t have family anywhere.” Ben sat down with his mug of coffee in-front of him. "I out-lived my family."
“Oh, I’m sorry”, Dave said. “I thoug–”
“It’s okay”, Benjamin said, then he changed the subject: “You know, when I was young–”
“On Earth?”
“Yeah– when I was young, I used to read stories about EC-I. Bradbury, Asimov, Heinlein; I grew up on that stuff. I had a telescope beside my bedroom-window when I was twelve.” Benjamin smiled, then sipped his coffee quickly, and continued: “I snuck out of bed most nights, just to look through it, sometimes right till morning. My Dad knew – I think he did, anyway – and he never stopped me. I had model of NASA's Apollo 11 dangling above my bed by a string; posters of Buzz Aldrin and Armstrong in my closet – Armstrong was my favourite." Benjamin took another slight pause, then finished: "I was a space-nut, I guess.”
“Asimov? Heinlein?” Dave had clearly been waiting to ask the question.
“Never mind. This–”
“Were they astronauts on an earlier Apollo shuttle?”
“No.” Ben laughed. “They were writers. But – this was all before man had actually been to EC-I. Did you know that? We called it Mars then, because it wasn't a colony yet.” Saying that name made Benjamin feel old. He laughed nervously, then checked to see if Dave was still paying attention – Dave had finished his coffee, then set the mug aside; now, he was leaning forward, the partial hologram of a universe impaling his chest – Benjamin continued, re-assured of Dave’s interest: “And in these stories, there would always be life-forms waiting for us on Mars; and they'd always be short, green, and hostile. Silly looking things. We called them Martians.”
“There were no life-forms on EC-I before man.” Dave spoke incredulously.
Benjamin shock his head. “No. That wasn't what I was saying. The point is: I didn't know if there was – or wasn't. Can you imagine how that felt? Nobody knew; not really. There was only speculation. We just believed in things, then." Benjamin sipped his coffee, then shock his head, now unsure of what he had been saying. He sighed, then asked: "What else could we do?”
Dave sat back in his seat, and watched the hologram in-front of him rotate slowly. After a long moment, he said: “No, I can't imagine it.”
Benjamin was looking out of the window again. “Well, Dave, sometime I wonder if I forgot how it felt myself.”
Dave stood from the table, seeming to be suddenly uncomfortable in Benjamin's company. "Sorry, I've got to go prepare the communication-feeds for the briefing."
I spoke too much, Benjamin thought.
Dave stopped for a moment, then turned around. "Don't be late, okay?"
"Okay, Dave."
“Coffee after the briefing, and you can tell me about these Mars stories, then; okay?” Dave laughed, then turned around. Before passing through the door-way, he turned one last time, and called back to Benjamin: “Don’t be late!”
- - -
Dave gave Benjamin a sharp, side-ways look, then turned back toward the briefing-monitors. Benjamin sat down in the empty chair beside Dave, trying his best not to draw attention to his late entrance.
Two monitors stood at the front of the briefing room; on the right-side monitor, the video-feed showed the scarred, fat face of the TARSAC’s Chief of Operations; on the left-side monitor, a taller man stood in a white, plain coat, in-front of what looked to be a rather long computer-panel – this face was unfamiliar to Benjamin.
Dave turned in his chair, and glanced at Ben. "You're late."
"I know. Did I miss anything?"
"We were drinking coffee twenty minutes ago. Where'd you get lost?"
"I just got caught up."
"Sure. Yeah, you missed a bit. That's our guy on EC-1 up there." Dave motioned to the unfamiliar face.
Ben was surprised. "That's the customer?"
"Mhmm."
A dozen men sat around a semi-circle shaped table, with two towering monitor-screens on its broad-side. Each of the men were dressed alike, and each shared a singular hair-cut, as-well as a singular posture; only Ben slumped forward in his chair.
The unfamiliar face was speaking now: "I will meet your crew at the docks after they are done loading the equipment you've requested. I'll give you the coordinates then, on paper; as-well as a number of other sensitive pieces of information – best to be on paper; untraceable that way. Memorize the coordinates, then burn them."
Dave leaned in toward Benjamin, and said: "The docks are in the outer-portion of Sector-Seven, near the oxygen farms; that's where my family lived. It's life-less, even by EC-I standards; and it smells like pi–"
The Chief nodded: "Understood."
Dave paused a moment, then continued: "The coordinates he mentioned are to a desert on the other-side of the planet. It's completely uninhabited. Chief said there are a few ghost-towns near our drop-off point, so there must have been someone there sometime, but fuck if I can guess why. I thought the eight sectors were it, as far as attempts at colonization went. I know there’s a few out-posts out there, thou–" Dave paused again.
The Chief addressed the room: “Tso and Dave are going to load the equipment onto the ship after we dock.”
“Shit”, Dave whispered.
“John, speak to me before disembarking, please”, Chief said. “Your going to take a shopping-list with you. Everybody else is free to roam Sector-Seven as they see fit, as long as no one draws attention to themselves, the mission, and especially not to the TARSAC. Clear?”
All twelve men stood from the semi-circle table simultaneously, then saluted the right monitor.
“Good. The day is your’s, gentlemen. Haymitch; we’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
Haymitch nodded, then both monitors turned black.
Leaving the briefing room, Benjamin turned back toward Dave. "You never said what the job was."
"Where did you go off to earlier?"
"I lost track of myself.” They came to a intersection in the corridor, and turned toward the cafeteria without pause. “Want another cup?”
“Sure.”
“If no one's in this desert, what the fuck are we needed for there?"
"Escorted expedition under the surface."
Benjamin stopped in-front of the cafeteria-door. “What?”
- - -
To be continued...
