GARRISON REEVES
When the Big Ring was complete, Garrison reserved a scout pod to make an inspection flight, and it seemed that everyone else at Fireheart had the same idea. The gigantic torus hung in space like a wedding ring for the universe.
When he had last checked, he was one of seventy-three individual inspection runs; not only was the Big Ring the largest physics experiment ever attempted, it was quite likely the most verified and inspected piece of equipment ever produced. Larger personnel shuttles flew out as well, and Station Chief Beren Alu didn’t even pretend that they were anything other than sightseeing opportunities.
More than ten thousand Roamer workers had contributed to the project over the course of six years, not counting the initial planning phases. Garrison had seen varying estimates of the overall budget, none of which were remotely accurate, because numerous clans had contributed private funding and most of them didn’t want to share details. Besides, no one suggested that Kotto hadn’t earned it, since his brilliant inventions had saved not only the clans but quite likely the human race.
When one of the scout pods was returned and refueled, Garrison signed it out, climbed aboard, and flew away from the admin hub. Other small craft flitted around the giant ring structure, looping through the central hole and cruising up along the curvature.
He was glad to have the pod to himself, which let him be alone with this magnificent structure. He was trained in dozens of useful skills. Some of his past jobs had been mind-numbingly boring, some dangerous, others gratifying, but none instilled such a sense of pride as this one did. He wasn’t especially interested in esoteric dimensional physics, high-energy transfer flux, folding and looping electromagnetic fields. Nevertheless, the ring itself struck him with awe.
And the boldness of such an impossible project warmed his heart. Olaf Reeves had called upon the clans to follow his similarly audacious vision of reassembling Rendezvous, but the Roamers had wanted a fresh start. Garrison’s father hadn’t been interested in anything new or fresh, and when the clans focused their efforts elsewhere, the stubborn man forced his own family to spend years on pointless work.
In the Big Ring, though, Garrison saw the proof of what the Roamer clans could achieve when they worked together on a project they all believed in. He was exhilarated to be part of it. He did wish, though, that Orli and Seth could be here with him to watch.
After the experiment, Station Chief Beren Alu was anxious to get Fireheart Station back to profitable manufacturing. Crew chiefs, seeing Garrison’s work, had offered him jobs at the energy-film farms, at the power-block assemblies, at the isotope packaging stations.
But as soon as the test was run, Garrison planned to head out and find Orli again. He had done a great deal of thinking—mostly about her—even while he kept busy with the impossible tasks. He had not had contact with her in some time, and he hoped she was all right. He also hoped they could find a way to run their lives in parallel.
He saw numerous ships flying to and from the greenhouse dome. With the full test imminent, a constant stream of workers wanted to send telink messages to friends, family, loved ones. He had sent another message to Academ only two days ago, telling Seth how excited he was.
In front of him, a flurry of lights sparkled along the ring: test lamps evenly spaced along the torus, winking on in sequence. They reminded Garrison of hundreds of luminous fairies racing around a track. Kotto Okiah had authorized the running lights to be tested every hour, just to impress all of the sightseeing “inspection” flights.
Glancing at the chronometer, Garrison realized he had to return the scout pod in fifteen minutes, because someone else wanted to do a flight. He reversed course and headed back to the docking bay. Very soon, the Big Ring was going to make history.