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Karma Star System, Cresht Region, Tolo Arm
October 1st, 2037
Despite Doc’s claim that he’d be back shortly, it turned out to be almost three months. On July 11th, Terry got an email from Doc. It was sent from Karma Station, and told Terry he’d be gone for at least a couple months, not to worry about him, and to help as much as possible.
“Where did Doc go?” he asked his mom at lunch. “Is he going back to Earth?”
“He’s not going to Earth,” she said, but she wouldn’t tell him anything more.
Despite the orcas’ recovery from the strange events in hyperspace, there was still plenty to do. More than there were people do to them, actually. He found himself learning how to maintain the tank filtration system and review computer records of water condition. Of course, those responsibilities were in addition to his taking care of Pōkole. Just keeping everyone fed and tended to on Teddy Roosevelt proved difficult. Terry had never thought about how much 125 people ate, drank, and more importantly, pooped every day.
The only thing he worried about was he’d yet to hear from his father or Yui. He checked with the Cartographers’ Guild, who traced communications, among other duties. A week later, they confirmed the messages had reached Earth. His mother said not to worry, it was probably the government stopping their messages. She said when Doc got back, they’d find a way around the block.
Pōkole continued to thrive, and all the marine biologists congratulated him on his great work. He was gaining weight at more than a kilo a day. Pōkole also continued to bond with his pod, and they reveled in his young energy. At Terry’s urging, the captain of Kavul Ato was convinced to open another adjacent cargo bay, and the orcas got more room to swim.
As he was working on the water systems as part of his job, he found himself finally spending some time around the bottlenoses, and was surprised at a profound change. They’d been strangely motivated by their trip through hyperspace. They were discussing how they couldn’t wait to go back.
“Why are you so eager to return to hyperspace?” he asked Skritch, who appeared to be the de facto leader of the Sunrise Pod.
“Like beyond!” was the answer.
“What do you like about—” he’d stopped in mid-sentence, his mouth hanging open. “Beyond? You call hyperspace beyond?”
“It beyond,” Skritch agreed.
“Beyond, beyond, beyond!” The entire pod had surfaced, and was chanting the world repeatedly.
“Do you know the orcas call it beyond also?” Terry asked them.
“Dark Killers blind beyond.”
“Afraid Shool is beyond,” another said.
They’d taken to calling the orcas dark killers not long after they’d received their implants, though they preferred not to talk about the orcas at all. The orcas called the bottlenoses ‘Swift Brothers.’ Dr. Hernandez found it interesting as he’d studied their psychology. After all, orcas were more closely related to dolphins than other whales, though they were all considered toothed whales.
“Is Shool beyond?” Terry asked.
“No,” they all agreed.
“Mom, did you know the orcas and the bottlenoses both call hyperspace beyond?” he asked her later.
“Yes,” she’d said, “Dr. Hernandez mentioned it in a meeting a couple of days ago.”
“They don’t see each other anymore. How could they both come up with the same name?”
“The theory is, someone said something to the bottlenoses.”
“I don’t think so,” Terry said.
“Can you support that theory?”
Terry loathed when his mom did that. The scientific method required you to be able to prove a theory. Of course he couldn’t prove it. “I can’t,” he mumbled.
“Then tell me when you can.”
Unfortunately, his duty required him to stay too busy, so he had no time to pursue the source of their terminology or how it might have come about. The closest he got to more information was discussing the idea with Dr. Hernandez briefly.
“I think it had something to do with the origins of words to the cetaceans,” the doctor explained. Terry caught him in a hallway heading for a meeting and floated along with him.
“What do you mean?” Terry asked.
“Well, Klaak, the Sidar who specialized in pinplants, said that words are often created by the translation matrix and are assigned in some cases. Maybe that just means the matrix of both cetacean species found similar results and came to the same conclusion. Excuse me, I’m late.”
Terry had plenty more questions, but grownups were always in a hurry. Mostly, he wanted to argue his case. How could the orcas and bottlenoses both settle on the word “beyond” for hyperspace when they had different experiences? The bottlenoses came out of hyperspace like they’d been to a summer camp, the orcas like they’d been tortured. Then Pōkole ended up with another minor infection, and he was too busy to worry about it.
When July gave way to August, his mother materialized out of nowhere with a tablet full of lessons.
“I have to do school work, too?” he complained.
“Yes, you do. Furthermore, I’ve assigned you extra learning, since we’ll be living in space for a while. Two of Teddy Roosevelt’s junior officers have volunteered to help teach classes. You and all the other children will attend for five hours a day, five days a week. You’ll have two hours a week with a tutor as well.”
“What kind of tutor?”
“You’ll be learning about Union pinplants.”
Terry gawked. “Really?”
“Yes,” she said, then grinned. “Your insights are excellent. Both Doctors Hernandez and Orsage said as much. Let’s see if you take to it.” After that, the time flew by. So much so that when Doc returned, he didn’t notice for two days.
“Hey, kiddo,” Doc said as he floated into Teddy Roosevelt’s galley, the only large space left on the freighter not full of water.
“Doc!” Terry said and slipped out of the strap around his waist holding him to the bench. He pushed over, then gave his friend a hug. “When did you get back?”
“Two days ago.”
“You didn’t say hi?”
“I’ve been pretty busy,” he said.
Terry smirked. “I bet, smooching my mom?”
“Mind your own business, Squirt,” he said and smacked him on the arm. Terry caught himself before he sailed away without thinking about it. “No, we’ve been talking about what we’re going to do now.”
Terry was about to ask what that meant when he saw Doc was wearing a uniform. “Wow, what have you been doing?”
“Working,” he said, and showed Terry the patch on his uniform sleeve.
“Woah, Golden Horde? I didn’t think they hired anyone who wasn’t from China, or something.”
“They had a change in ownership, so to speak,” Doc explained.
Terry looked at the two gold bars on Doc’s collar and his still heavily-suntanned face. The man looked a little older, somehow. “Why did you join a merc company?”
“For this,” Doc said, and held out a credit chit.
Terry took the plastic Union credit chit and examined it. In school they’d learned a little about them, in particular how to understand one of the more common Union numerical systems. “A thousand credits? Holy crap, that’s $35 million dollars! They paid you that much?”
“No, they paid me and my team $4 million credits for the first contract, $2.5 million for the second one, and a $1 million credit bonus after we finished up.”
Terry was as flabbergasted as he ever remembered being. He added it all up in his head. “$7.5 million credits in just a couple months?”
“Merc work pays really good, kiddo. If you survive, that is.”
“The other SEALs who came with you went too, then?”
“Yes, there were eight of us.”
“Were?” Terry asked, knowing the answer.
“Yes, two didn’t make it. But the money’s what we needed.”
“What for?”
Doc grinned and winked. “You’ll find out in a little bit.” Terry went to hand the credit chit back. “No, that’s yours.”
“What for?”
“Your mom told me how hard you’ve been working. You deserve something for that.”
“This is too much,” Terry said, and tried to give it back to him again.
“Don’t be ridiculous. We’re not on Earth anymore. That doesn’t go as far out here as you might think. Tell you what. Let me finish up a few things, and tomorrow we can go over to Karma Station. How does that sound?”
“Mom said nobody from the ship was allowed to go there,” Terry said.
“Yeah, well, we’re back now, so leave has been granted.”
* * * * *
