Shad moved like a robot. Careful, choreographed, methodical. Carriles wondered what they would do if he cut and ran. Probably they’d subdue him instantly and then drag him to see Delmar.
Carriles wondered, too, if what he’d done qualified as insubordination—or worse, treason. He’d gone behind the backs of his superior officers. He was poking his nose into things above his pay grade. Delmar tended to have a fairly lax policy on most things: he respected and appreciated the bounds of ceremony, sure, but knew they were so far from home and risking so much, they needed to feel at ease, too. Still, Carriles had now fucked up in a few significant ways.
“That was some nice work you did,” Shad said.
“Excuse me?”
“Saved the entire ship.”
“Right, yeah, well . . . I got lucky.”
Shad stopped, so hard and fast Carriles nearly walked into them. They turned and fixed him with a hard stare. “You didn’t get lucky. You came up with a solution, realized that the risk was worth the reward, and executed it flawlessly. Don’t talk yourself down. Not after saving this entire mission.”
“It’s just—”
Shad punctured the heaviness with a little smirk. “That kind of thing will carry you pretty far. But only so far if you’re getting yourself into trouble. You understand me?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Good. Now just try to keep being smart like that.”
They resumed their march toward Delmar’s quarters, and Carriles was trying to divine what Shad meant—did they know about the engineering report? Was he really in that much trouble? Before he could consider how screwed he was, they reached the door to Delmar’s room just as Dr. Sarah Liu was leaving.
A member of the Chinese contingent, and the ship’s chief medical officer, she was generally no-nonsense, cool under pressure. But now her eyes were puffy, like she’d been crying, or trying not to. She exchanged a brief, uncomfortable glance with Carriles before stalking off down the hall.
That did not bode well.
Shad stopped by the door and gestured for him to enter.
“Good luck,” they said.
Carriles nodded a thanks and went inside.
Delmar’s quarters were downright regal compared to the bunker-like setup Carriles called home. There was a foyer-slash-living-room area and a hallway that led to what Carriles assumed were Delmar’s personal quarters. The space was a shrine to Delmar’s career—statues, trophies, pictures with dignitaries and celebrities. Carriles spotted Senators Antwan Tobin, Amina Garrett, and Todd Adlerberg—political luminaries on New Destiny, who he recognized from stuffy dinners hosted by his mother, Olga Carriles, which led to heavy-handed, late-night discussions in her study.
The place felt lived-in in a way his home had felt—important things happened here. It was like seeing a museum exhibit after hours. The items that were collected here meant something, had played a part in the world.
A place to sleep. But Carriles wasn’t here to admire Delmar’s art collection. Delmar was seated on what looked like a very comfortable, long purple couch propped up against the far wall, windows revealing the dark space around the ship. He was dressed casually, a shiny burgundy robe draped around his strong frame, casual slacks and sandals on his legs and feet.
Just one of the guys, Carriles thought.
“Please,” Delmar said, gesturing to a wingback chair across from him. “Have a seat.”
Carriles sat, hands folded in his lap. Delmar was smiling, and Carriles couldn’t tell what kind of smile it was. The man had so many smiles, and even though this one felt somewhat easy, Carriles wondered what was underneath it. He braced himself, waiting for the tirade he assumed was coming.
“Drink?” Delmar asked instead.
The captain nodded toward the table between them, which held a decanter with a deeply rich amber liquid, and two crystal glasses.
One last drink before Shad marches me out of an air lock? Carriles thought.
Delmar didn’t wait for an answer. He took the decanter, pulled out the crystal stopper, and took a deep whiff.
“Do you know who Sir Ernest Shackleton was?”
Carriles shook his head.
Delmar nodded as he tipped the decanter over Carriles’s glass. “He was an Antarctic explorer. In 1907—so this is going back a ways—he ordered twenty-five cases of Highland malt whisky to take on an expedition to the South Pole.” Delmar moved on to his own glass. “He had to abandon the voyage, because he knew to continue would mean the death of his crew. He was only ninety-seven miles from his destination.”
Delmar put down the decanter and picked up his glass, swirling it around. “At their base camp, they left behind three crates. These were discovered in 2007. It was still drinkable. They opened up a number of bottles and recreated it, so they could put it on the market, but this . . .”
He took a sip, and his eyes nearly rolled back in his head.
“. . . this is one of the original bottles.”
“Holy shit,” Carriles said.
“Holy shit is right,” Delmar said. “It’s worth a fortune. Make sure you savor it, though, because you’re not getting a second pour.”
Carriles picked up the glass. He hadn’t had anything other than vodka, or the rotgut that’d been passed around the ship, in years, and he let the woodsy smell soak into his sinuses before he took a sip. It was harsh—oak and vanilla and sharp as a razor but also a little buttery on the finish. It warmed up his whole body and he understood why an adventurer would take this on an expedition to the Antarctic.
“Now, you might be thinking, if Shackleton ultimately failed, why would I bring this on our mission?” Delmar asked. “I know a lot of the folks here tend to be superstitious, and a lot of the time, so am I. But for me, it’s a reminder. Shackleton could have pushed on. He could have tried to cover those final ninety-seven miles. But he didn’t. He made a tough call to save his people.”
Delmar took another sip as Carriles just enjoyed the aftertaste in his mouth. There were a couple of sips left and he wanted to stretch them out.
“I’ll be frank with you, Jose,” Delmar said, gearing up for something big. He leaned back on the couch, draping one arm over the back, one leg over the other, and cradled the glass of whisky on his knee. He rarely used Carriles’s first name—usually defaulting to rank. Carriles didn’t know how to feel about it.
“There are a lot of moving parts here,” Delmar continued. “Me, I’m just a captain. I just want to lead missions, explore, you know—science. I want to learn. I want to help humanity. But you can’t do that without politics. You can’t just be a science vessel, wandering space for the better of humanity. That’s a fantasy. In the real world, everything is loaded with expectations, and the Mosaic is not exempt from that.”
Delmar sighed and took another sip, then threw a curious eye at Carriles, who responded by taking another sip as well.
“When the Mosaic was chosen to head out here, it was a US mission. This was our idea,” Delmar said. “But because we believe in the Interstellar Union, because we want to foster a sense of unity and diplomacy, we talked to the Russians, we talked to our friends in China—and we said, ‘Hey, let’s make history together.’ I believe in that. I want this to be the start of a better world for all of us. But the Russians passed. They don’t like to share the spotlight. Fine. The Chinese were amenable, but they had demands. They wanted cocaptains. Now, you know as well as I do that you can’t run a ship with two captains. It’s hard enough with just one. We negotiated it down. China gets half the senior staff. That means we have Commander Wu as our first officer. It’s . . . look, it’s just not ideal. You get that, right?”
Carriles nodded. He had expected to get chewed out for running that engineering report. He had a million questions about what was going on. Instead, he was getting a civics lesson. Granted, he understood it. You don’t grow up as the son of a senator without absorbing a lot through osmosis. Carriles just nodded, hoping to see what would happen.
Because something else was nagging at him. Why was Delmar, who had mastered the art of being charming and distant—in a way that predicted a long, successful career in politics—suddenly revealing everything to Carriles?
It didn’t add up.
“Not ideal, right,” Carriles said. “But I’m still not clear on what it all means, Captain. Sorry.”
Delmar waved Carriles off gently, a gesture of understanding and camaraderie.
“Who could expect you to?” he said with a humorless smile. “This is my plight, Carriles. But I like to be up-front with my people, and you’re starting to show me you’re on the right team. Just stay vigilant, okay? Keep me posted if anything else comes up. Anything else you think is worth a second look. We have to navigate some pretty choppy waters just getting to Esparar. I don’t want to drown because someone on my own side is looking to undercut me to please their bosses back home. You understand, right?”
The picture was becoming a little clearer. Delmar was feeling him out. About what, he didn’t know. But he seemed to be expecting some kind of answer. Carriles suddenly felt like he was being interrogated.
“Wu spoke to me before I came here,” Carriles said, the words leaping out of his mouth before he had time to consider them.
Delmar nodded and smiled. Like he knew, and was waiting for Carriles to offer it up.
“And let me guess, he was asking about that engineering report you pulled?” Delmar asked.
“Captain, I . . .”
Delmar waved the glass like he was shooing away a bit of smoke. “Vicks told me about your conversation. So did Robinson. Neither of them are your biggest fans at the moment.”
Carriles’s face flushed. “I’m sorry, I just . . .”
“You think I’d be sharing this whisky with you if I was pissed?” he asked. “You’re a goddamn hero, Carriles. You saved every soul on this ship. You did something I couldn’t. And I get it. Vicks and Robinson, they think their job is to speak for me. Take the load off so I can focus. Most of the time, that’s true. But I’m speaking now. Yes, you bit off a little more than you could chew. But honestly, with everything that’s been going on . . .” Delmar paused. “. . . if you didn’t?”
Delmar put down the glass, leaned forward, and lowered his voice.
“If you didn’t, I would have brushed you off as someone who pulled a lucky shot at the last second. Instead, I see someone who is a hell of a lot more clever than I gave him credit for. Someone who actually gives a damn about the importance of this mission. So, consider this drink my apology. I was wrong about you.”
Carriles sat back, took another sip. At this point he had no idea what to do.
“You have questions,” Delmar said. “And at this juncture, I don’t have answers. Not yet. For the safety of everyone aboard this ship, I need to play this one close. But just know that I see what you’re doing.” He tapped his chest. “I appreciate it. And . . .”
Delmar leaned even closer. Dropped his voice even lower. Some of the camaraderie disappeared from his voice. “And I’d appreciate it if you brought any concerns you had to me, in private. My door is open. Especially if it’s related to our friends.”
The way he said friends, Carriles knew exactly who he meant. He thought of Liu again, walking out of here like she’d just been reprimanded.
Carriles nodded.
He had so many questions. Why had the diagnostics report been wiped? What happened to the wire? And the alarms? What had Delmar been talking about with Liu right before this? Was someone trying to sabotage the mission?
Instead, he said, “Thank you, Captain. I’ll keep an eye out, and I won’t let you down.”
Delmar smiled, patted his knee, and said, “Good man. I hadn’t been sure about you up until today. Now I . . .”
There was a buzz of static, and then Vicks came over the comms. “We are about to enter visual range of Esparar.”
Delmar threw back the rest of his whisky.
“Well, I guess it’s showtime, kid,” he said. “Let’s go take a big leap for mankind, huh?”
[ASTERISM]
After months of staring at darkness, Carriles’s head spun looking at the precious marble suspended in the void before him. Delmar stood beside him, similarly speechless. The view had stopped them a few steps outside of Delmar’s quarters.
The planet had been discovered decades ago and was chosen from dozens of other candidates for this mission because the gravity and atmosphere most closely resembled that of Earth, which meant there was a good chance they wouldn’t even need space suits down on the surface, depending on the radiation levels. The planet was tidally locked—not rotating, so one side was always in darkness, the other always aglow from the red dwarf it orbited. High cloud cover and atmospheric circulation kept temperatures fairly steady. Habitability was most likely in the twilight band between the perpetual day and night. Plenty of room for a settlement, for humanity to take a baby step into the vastness of the universe.
In the cascade of colors visible through the clouds, Carriles was most encouraged by the deep richness of the blue.
Water.
That life-sustaining thing, there in abundance.
The planet had had another name. Some scientific nomenclature. But before the mission, it was changed to Esparar.
Hope.
“Hell of a thing, huh, Captain?”
Carriles was so lost in the majesty of it he didn’t notice that Stegman had appeared at the window alongside him.
“You’re damn right it is,” Delmar said.
“That’s a whole new planet, bro,” Carriles said to Stegman. “We’re just looking at it with our eyes.”
Stegman offered a fist bump. “Thanks to you.”
Carriles couldn’t help but beam at that, and wonder what they were going to find on the surface. Carriles gave Delmar a slight nod and the two of them shook hands.
“Okay, fellas,” Delmar said. “Lots to do.”
Delmar left for the bridge. Stegman watched him leave, then turned to Carriles. “What do you think we’ll find down there?”
“No idea.”
“I hope we find some cool animals. Though given our luck it’ll be covered in monster bugs.”
Over the last two decades, humanity had discovered radio signals from around the universe—too complicated to decode, but consistent enough that intelligent beings almost certainly produced them. Those signals were too far away to hope for any kind of contact, but maybe, one day. Esparar emitted no such signals, but that didn’t rule out the presence of lesser life-forms. There was no way to tell what was down there until they touched down.
“I just want to get there safe,” Carriles said. “Then we’ll figure it out.”
“All right, man, time to work,” Stegman said, smacking Carriles’s back and heading off down the hall.
Carriles scanned the now-empty hallway for—what, exactly? A tail? Lingering eyes? He wasn’t sure. But even in the face of Esparar, he couldn’t ignore the sour feeling in his gut that smothered any sense of wonder.
As he walked down the hall toward the flight deck, he couldn’t help but feel like nothing had been resolved. Rather, he had even more questions.
Was it the failed diagnostic? Was it Wu’s clumsy fishing for info? Or was it Delmar?
Whatever was happening—it seemed like more than just diplomatic shell games between the American and Chinese crew members, he thought. But those were dangerous enough.
Had someone intentionally sabotaged the ship to slow down their mission? Was Wu just looking out for himself? Was China planning something?
Carriles shook his head. This was all well above his pay grade.
He needed help.
And there they were, alone and out in the middle of nowhere.