took ladders downward through the Front to the pod station, using the time to mull over the ramifications of the Captain’s personnel moves and how they affected the people he worked with, most notably Charles.
The more Bertie thought about his boss’s promotion, the more he realized that their old life of partying was over. I have to make him into a captain-to-be, but how the hell can I do that when he doesn’t want the job?
The first step was to track down Charles. He disappeared again while Bertie was moving Charles’s things from the Second Officer’s quarters into the First Officer’s office. The entire endeavor took relatively little time. Charles did not believe in keepsakes and knickknacks.
The first and saddest part of the task, however, was packing the former First Officer’s personal belongings. Aside from his father and brother, Byron declared no next of kin in his will, not even a girlfriend. Bertie was unsure what to do with the pictures and awards from his Academy and football days. Eventually, Bertie decided to save them in an unused storage room next to his own quarters and ask the Captain later when the old man was back on his feet.
“What if he doesn’t get back on his feet?” a voice whispered in his head.
Bertie sighed, knowing that worry was the crux of his current dilemma. He wasn’t surprised by the Captain’s appearance in the Crew’s mess on Celebration Day. It reminded him of his own father after his mother passed away. Bertie watched his dad melt away into nothing for all practical purposes, as he stopped eating, going to work, and caring about almost everything. Nothing Bertie and his sisters tried could bring their father back. He died a few weeks later.
If the old man is the same way, I don’t have much time to create a captain out of nothing.
Bertie arrived at the pod station and touched a control panel to request a two-person pod. His destination was the Back, though it was called the Engineering Section when the ship launched thousands of years ago. Bertie always thought the word “section” too small to describe the Back, for it held almost everything that kept Salvation alive.
The humongous impellers that drove the ship through space at near light speed were important, but the Back also contained controls that sustained the ship, notably those for the gravity plates in the Front and Back and the associated life support systems. Most importantly, the Back kept to the old ways of keeping its people trained in maintenance and repair. When something broke, an Engineer would appear to save the day.
The Back also held farmland large enough to feed their own. They did not have to rely on the vast farms in the Ring to survive, and this was not an accident. If needed, the Back could disconnect from the rest of the ship and continue the voyage to Landfall, using an emergency bridge designed to back up the main bridge in the Front.
Bertie wondered idly if the Engineer at that time considered activating that option during the three Passenger mutinies since Salvation left Old Earth thousands of years ago. The action would, for all purposes, destroy the front two sections as they could not survive without the Back. The thousands in the Ring would be especially affected without the spin of the cylinder to provide artificial gravity.
On the other hand, Bertie had little use for human beings who did nothing but lounge around and complain from morning until night.
Passengers are the historical warts on the butt of this ship.
To get to the Back, Bertie’s journey began in the Front, the control center of the ship and home to the bridge. This section was the immediate realm controlled by the Captain, though according to the Ship’s Charter, he was in command of the entire ship.
On Flyaway Day, thousands of years before, the Front was fully staffed from top to bottom. Now it was generally a sad, empty shell with most of the Crew in their cabins with nothing to do at the moment. They served as stevedores and such to the Passengers in the Ring, but when the most recent mutiny took shape and became real, the Captain called the Crew home. Since he didn’t know where their sympathies lay, the Captain restricted them to quarters. Bertie and many others thought the Captain overreacted, but what was done was done.
In any case, the Crew were not trained to stand watches or manage systems in the Front. When something broke in the Front, the Engineers would come forward and fix it, but while they could fix a broken circuit, they weren’t expected to do much more than that under the Ship’s Charter. Using the control boards and panels to steer and manage the ship was supposed to be the responsibility of the Crew.
Except no trained Crew members remained to man the helm and navigation stations.
Very few people outside of the few Crew members assigned to the bridge realized the danger of this problem. Bertie was one of them.
We’re making Landfall in three years, and as it is, the computer is making the few course changes needed to get us to Landfall. The main artificial intelligence module was shut down after the first mutiny, so we have no one to run the ship when we enter the gravity well of the solar system ahead. Three years is barely time to train the Crew members to the task, even if we’re lucky enough to find anyone with the basic math skills to understand what they’re doing.
Bertie sighed. The Captain not only overreacted to the mutiny, but he was also underreacting to the lack of trained Crew members.
But all of this is not even close to being my problem. My number one problem is creating an officer who can solve those problems.
The pod arrived, interrupting his thoughts. To get to the Back, Bertie had to travel through the axis connecting the Ring to the Front and Back. Though everyone called it “the Ring,” the more correct term would have been “The Cylinder,” because the center of Salvation was a long, wide version on an O’Neill cylinder that rotated on an axis suspended between the Front and the Back. The rotation provided artificial gravity to the thousands of inhabitants and hundreds of villages within the inner surface of the cylinder. As long as the cylinder spun, and as long as the cylinder remained attached to the nine spokes emanating from the axis at regular intervals along the length of the axis, all the people inside were safe.
Because of the length of the cylinder, travel between the Front and Back would take days by foot, but the Original Builders anticipated that need. The axis contained sophisticated tramways built for speed. The trip from Front to Back took minutes instead of days, and riding the tram was perhaps Bertie’s greatest pleasure on the ship. He smiled as he climbed into the pod.
Before the latest mutiny, access to the “north” end of the tram located in the Front was unlocked, unguarded, and free to use by all members of the ship. The Crew used the pods to travel to any of the nine spokes, descending to villages to complete their duties, until the Captain restricted them to quarters. In the same action, he locked down the pod stations to authorized personnel only, hoping to stop the mutineers from accessing the Front, but they breached the locked station, anyway, and threatened the Front. The ship was saved through the Captain’s drastic action at the last possible minute.
Bertie hoped the pod stations would be unlocked for all hands soon. Until then, Passengers were basically restricted to their homes and villages in the Ring, cut off from the Front and Back, until further notice.
“Identify, please,” the pod’s computer prompted as Bertie climbed in.
He laid his hand on the flat panel.
“Confirmed. Destination?”
“The Back.”
The pod seemed to explode from the station into a tunnel illuminated by multiple lights, and Bertie wondered, as he always did, if he was breaking the speed of sound. The simplistic panel in front of him displayed the pod’s location in the axle with a red light in a diagram. He saw he was traveling at a high rate of speed, but he was clueless about speed apart from the pod stations and other landmarks whizzing by his window. He could do the basic math——“distance divided by time equals speed,“ intoned the remembered voice of his math teacher—but the mystery was part of the fun.
The pod whizzed through the stations at each spoke, and Bertie wasn’t surprised to see the platforms were empty. The Alpha spoke and station were the most “northern” of the nine, and Bertie grumbled at the amount of vandalism and damage left behind by the mutineers.
No one’s taken the time or responsibility to clean their shit up.
Still, not my problem.
The pod slowed as it approached the Back, and Bertie saw three Badges on the platform waiting for him. All were massive, muscular specimens, and he was sure they could disassemble him with little or no effort. Despite having traveled to the Back on a weekly basis before the mutiny, he didn’t recognize any of them.
Bertie stepped from the pod, holding his empty hands out in plain sight. “How goes?” he asked congenially. His efforts were wasted.
“Business?” the Badge in the middle asked tersely.
Bertie noted the red light on the camera above them. He knew a dozen Badges were on standby in a nearby room and could flood the platform in an instant to repel unwelcome guests. “Ship’s business. Looking for the First Officer.”
The Badge exchanged a look with one of his colleagues before pointing at a lift. “He went down.”
Bertie sighed internally as he heard the unspoken words—he went to the Bilgewater Café. “Thanks, mate.”
“We’re not your ‘mate.’” The Badge’s eyes narrowed menacingly.
“Right.” Bertie opened the lift and entered, waving to the Badges before the door closed.
They did not wave back.
Didn’t used to be that way. Used to be one Badge in this station, and it was most often someone friendly and close to retirement. The Engineer is taking recent events seriously.
He smiled at the thought of Joro Valadez, whom he held in high regard. He believed if anyone outside of the Devereaux family should ever be Captain, Joro would be at the top of the list. She tolerated no fools, yet she possessed the rare ability to make everyone feel valued and needed. The fact that Landfall would essentially put her out of a job made him a little sad, as she seemed born to be the Engineer, but he remembered the old Bible phrase from his youth.
A time for every purpose.
The pod stopped on the lowest level of the Back, and Bertie stepped into a long dark passageway that smelled strongly of machine oils and sewage. He knew this corridor was infrequently traveled due to the odors alone, making it an ideal location for illicit activity like Smoker lounges… and his destination.
Bertie took his time navigating around the various valves, pipes, and fittings that stuck out into the passageway. He traveled this way too many times not to be careful, as his body paid the price with numerous scrapes and bruises from the metal fittings. He was also self-aware enough to know his nerves were jangled by the thought of the open space a few yards below his feet.
He trusted the Original Builders. They built, in his opinion, the most marvelous machine in the history of history. He logically understood there was next to no chance that Salvation‘s deck would open under him and send him out to the vacuum. However, he watched the video of the mutineers being expelled into space. Their looks of surprise and horror haunted his nightmares.
Bertie entered what was on the ship’s diagram as a valve-management space for the farms four decks above his head but actually doubled as the outer room to the Bilgewater Café. He knew the café‘s bouncer was already watching him via the camera in the upper corner.
He waved and was rewarded with the sound of an opening door.
“Hey, Bertie.” The bouncer offered a hand.
They shook. “Rolf.” Bertie realized he was glad to see the young man, whose biceps were larger than both of Bertie’s legs. “How’s the family?”
“Glad you asked.” Rolf pulled out his cell to show a baby with a pink bow. “Posey. A month ago.”
“Blessings, Dad!” Bertie reached up to slap Rolf’s shoulder and wasn’t surprised that it felt like solid rock.
“Thanks.” Rolf smiled at the picture. “It changes you. It changes everything.”
“You’re not wrong.” Bertie looked behind the bouncer. “Is he here?”
The smile vanished, and the cell disappeared into Rolf’s pocket. “He’s back in the usual place. Is it true? Him being named First Officer?”
Bertie understood the source of the question. Even if Charles wasn’t a frequent café visitor, his reputation preceded him everywhere on the ship. “He’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.”
“Whatever. We’ll see, mate.”
Bertie recognized a dismissal when he heard one. He walked through the curtain behind Rolf and entered the main floor of the casino, waving the smoke from his face as he walked past the dozen table games. Every seat was taken, and every player kept a drink near their elbow or in their free hand, but that wasn’t what bothered him. Smokers were barred from the café in the past because the owner was vehemently opposed to the habit.
He paused to watch the game on the screen, identifying the Front’s Officer’s Academy team taking on one of the Ring’s better teams. The sport was known by different names, depending on where you were raised. Passengers called it “soccer,” while Engineers called it “football.” Bertie watched gangs from the Ring and the Back fight over the more correct name. He agreed with his fellow Crew members—they stayed above the fray and simply called it “the game.”
Someone came up from behind and touched his shoulder. “Bertram.”
“Madam Chang.” He paused to breathe in her perfume as he wondered for the hundredth time the actual age of the woman. He couldn’t begin to guess, even after the dozens of times she laid naked atop him.
“You missed our last appointment.” Louisa Chang smiled wickedly as she used their mutual codeword for their liaisons.
“Mutiny, remember?”
“Yes. Sad times.” She placed a finger on his lips. “I miss you, but I don’t understand why.”
“Me neither.” He kissed her finger, wondering how this elegant, well-mannered woman in red silk wiggled her way into his consciousness. Their forced separation weighed on him. “I’ve never been this thirsty in my life.”
“Tonight?”
“Tomorrow.” Bertie looked away from the short woman to point through the darkened room. “Smokers? Really?”
“Times change, Bertram. Got to change with them.”
“You’re gonna get shut down if the Engineer finds out. Nobody knows what’s in those weeds. People have died.”
Madam Chang waved at the crowd. “They know. At least they’re not Huffers.”
Bertie cringed at the word. Before Joro became the Engineer, parts of the Back were dangerous places to walk due to gangs of addicts snorting the fumes from peri-coolant, perhaps the most caustic and dangerous fluid on the ship. The dealers would tap key transfer lines and, more often than not, end up getting their flesh eaten away faster than acid. Joro’s predecessor unleashed the Badges and forcibly ended all commerce in peri-coolant.
The sticking point for Bertie was the dealers and users being treated with equal mercy, meaning none. All were prosecuted, and most were separated from their families, neighborhoods, and workplaces to work in the deepest and darkest parts of the ship.
I wonder if any were ever allowed to go home.
Madam Chang’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Your friend is here.””I’m getting him out.” Bertie started to turn then stopped. “Do me a favor.”
“Of course.”
“This is Charles’s last visit. Do I have to explain why?”
Madam Chang crossed her arms. “I’m not an idiot, Bertram. Many of us have things figured out. Besides, if what I hear is true, he’s going to be too busy to visit.”
Bertie’s heart sank. If she knows about the Captain’s health down here, then everyone on the ship knows. “Fine, then. You know what you have to do.”
“Is that a threat? From you?”
“Of course not.” Bertie let his exasperation show. “Come on, Cherry. How long have we known each other? Really known?”
She blushed at the pet name. “Fine.” The café manager looked over Bertie’s shoulder. “He’s behind there. Take him, along with five percent of my business.”
“What do you mean?”
“The man draws flies like the compost piles on the farms. Suck-ups. Lazy scum. People think he’ll do them favors when he’s the boss, and he’s one heartbeat away from the throne.” Her voice trailed off. “You’re right. Last visit.”
“Thanks. I owe you.”
“I’ll collect.”
“Tomorrow.”
“No. After that.”
I know you will.
Bertie turned and parted the curtain to see the fighters’ fenced ring surrounded by stacked benches, all filled with screaming bettors accompanied by companions of various genders and ages. In the center were two Troggs, human mountains easily six and a half feet tall or more, both heavily muscled to the point that they could withstand multiple blows.
As he worked his way through the benches to the far side, Bertie reviewed the historical mystery of Troggs, a faction in the Back that raised and trained ring fighters, among other things. All Troggs were born in a secretive commune known as Kasugano Beya that permitted almost no outsiders aside from an occasional priest and emergency-response team. Outside of fighters, the only Troggs seen in public were the ones sent out to learn trades and skills they would take back into Kasugano Beya.
What was not common knowledge among most on Salvation was that the Troggs were the ship’s foremost ecologists and guardians of Mankind’s sole remaining genetic library. The vast cryogenic stores in their care were a literal Noah’s Ark of chromosomal history containing nearly every form of life from Old Earth.
The Troggs were a far-seeing people, and they developed technology to store and preserve genetic samples from around the world hundreds of years prior to Flyaway Day. Their mission in life was to be able to integrate some, if not all, of Old Earth’s life forms on whatever planet turned out to be their destination.
Bertie respected the higher vision of the Troggs and their dedication in keeping their front door locked as he paused to watch the two massive fighters clash in the ring. He held no illusions about his own abilities against the Troggs. He was certain that he could hold his own against a fellow Burner, but watching the viciousness from a few feet away, he knew any single Trogg could tear him to pieces with little to no trouble.
Charles occupied a bench on the far side of the ring between two blondes with admirable chests who were engrossed in the fight, both of them shouting words Bertie didn’t think they understood. The Burners on the benches sitting around Charles were laser-focused on the fight, all of them smoking or drinking or both.
Not everyone is sitting down. He locked eyes with a massive human being leaning on the wall near Charles, arms crossed, and they nodded at each other before the other guy turned his head to watch the crowd.
If that’s not a Badge, then I’ll eat his… Well, I’ll eat his badge. He’s not here by choice. He’s on duty guarding Charles.
Bertie wound through the benches, ignoring the protests as he knocked legs and stepped on feet. Nicely done, Joro. You anticipated Charles would hide down here and you wanted him to be safe. Okay. Message received.
As he approached, Bertie noted that the Badge uncrossed his arms.
“Good afternoon, sir,” he said to Charles in a loud voice as he stopped in front of the couch. The blondes stood to watch the fight around him.
Charles first focused on the spaces left empty by his companions then made the visible effort to focus on the man standing in front of him. “Bertie! Pull up a bench and get a drink. On me.” He poked the leg of the blonde on the left. “Chelsea, love, get my man Bertie a drink.”
“I’m Denise.” She pouted. “That’s Chelsea.”
“Right. Sorry, love. Bend over.” When she did, he kissed her cheek. “The drink?”
“Sir,” Bertie interrupted, “the Captain’s compliments. He would like to see you immediately.” The lie came easy.
“Yeah, right. The old man is probably drooling into his evening oatmeal.”
That’s it. The ship is already infected with shitty morale, but I cannot let him make it worse. “We’re leaving, sir. Now.” Bertie reached down, grabbed Charles by the front of his jumpsuit, and pulled him to his feet. “Captain’s orders.”
“Fuck you!”
Bertie saw the punch coming from a million miles away and ducked under Charles’s swing easily. Coming back up, he hit the First Officer neatly on the chin. Charles’s eyes rolled up into his head, and he flopped back onto the bench, his flailing hand pulling down Chelsea with him.
Or is that Denise? Does it matter?
As the woman squealed, Bertie watched the Burners around them jump to their feet. Even the Badge took a step forward, although Bertie wasn’t sure if he was joining the crowd or protecting Charles. He pretty much didn’t care.
Bertie smiled wickedly at the masses. “Okay, girls, who wants to dance?”
Before they could respond, a half dozen bouncers appeared from doors that Bertie didn’t know existed, followed by Madam Chang.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please take your drinks to the main bar for a free refill.” She paused for effect. “Now.”
No one moved, and Bertie was sure there was going to be a donnybrook.
Then the Badge pointed to the main door and spoke in a deep voice. “Free drinks.”
That broke the ice, and the benches emptied. Bertie pulled Charles’s limp body and hefted him over his shoulder, ignoring the protests of the two women.
Damn. He weighs almost nothing.
Bertie nodded at the Badge and stopped beside Madam Chang. “That’s two favors I owe you.”
“That one’s on the house. Consider it a present for years of patronage.” She looked at the First Officer as he snored. “The three of us had good times, Bertram.”
“Times change. See you tomorrow.” Bertie adjusted the limp body on his shoulder before he left the room and wandered out of the casino, noting the stares.
Now what the fuck am I supposed to do with you, Charles?
An idea bloomed out of nowhere, and Bertie laughed.
If I’m going to be court-martialed for assaulting a superior officer, I might as well go all the way.