Project Sail (7 page)

Wren and Kost sat together drinking coffee and watching a video on e-paper. Despite his unpleasant disposition, the two were travel companions or bunk buddies, or whatever term was in fashion these days.

Carlson hovered nearby, waiting for a vending machine to dispense food but his attention focused—as usual—on his wrist computer.

“Good morning,” Hawthorne said as he crossed the chamber.

“I don’t see a fucking sunrise,” Wren grumbled.

Carlson, however, enthusiastically replied, “Good morning! I managed to catch a data stream and download a news update!”

Wren shot, “Oh shut the hell up about it already.”

Although no one asked, Carlson shared the headlines, the information transmitted from his wrist computer into his brain through his thinker chip.

“A coalition of South American politicians has lodged a formal protest over North American trade policies and space access. The biggest two professional soccer leagues are talking about merging and a study by the University of Southern California suggests that ship shielding and drug therapies are not providing adequate protection from cosmic radiation.”

Carlson kept talking but Hawthorne kept walking, having little interest in current events that were just recycled past events.

As he moved on, he passed more crew quarters and then reached the engineering section.

Tubes, cisterns, coils, and circle-shaped field emitters surrounded the walkway. A buzz filled the space and the heavy, humid air felt charged, as if a thunderstorm gathered.

He continued to the rear third of the ship where he could enter eight different cargo bays but the echo of a bouncing ball led him to the right one.

Big drums filled the rear quarter of the chamber, stacked halfway to the ceiling in tiered rows. Hawthorne worked his way around this barrier until reaching the
Virgil’s
handball court.

“You must be doing well to afford empty space during a run.”

Horus stood at center court wearing baggy gray sweat pants, a red tank top, and fingerless gloves.

Hawthorne continued his thought as he put on white and blue gloves, “Diametric drives, RDM, and docking permits cost money, not to mention full gravity in a cargo hold. You must be the richest freighter Captain in the system.”

Horus bounced a little blue ball to the Commander and answered, “Because I set aside space for this I can recruit crewmen cheaper.”

Hawthorne smacked the ball forward where it careened off the front wall at a sharp angle and then returned to him.

“I received half my promotions in the Navy because I could play this damn game. Of course, that was in my prime which was a few years and,” he tapped the small bulge in his gut, “thirty pounds ago.”

Hawthorne last played a month before on Mars using regulation courts. In contrast, the cargo bay lacked a back wall.

“Would you like first serve, Commander?”

“Captain’s choice.”

“Fair enough.”

Horus stood at the service line, bounced the ball, and fired off a serve. It hit midway up on the front wall and then off the side, following a Z pattern as it came back and across the court. Hawthorne returned it with a line drive that hit in the front corner and rolled out, allowing for no return.

“Nice kill shot,” Horus complimented as he retreated from the service line. “You have a good left arm.”

“I’m surprised it hasn’t fallen off by now.”

As Hawthorne prepared to serve he asked, “So who said I was a decent player?”

“A couple of years ago I had a problem with customs at Ganymede and needed to kiss the navy’s ass. A Captain Duncan helped me out and she said Jonathan Hawthorne was the best player around Jupiter at one time.”

Hawthorne paused for a moment, a flood of memories he shared with Amanda Duncan coming to mind, some pleasant, others not.

He composed himself and said, “She is an Admiral now.”

“She did not appear that old.”

Hawthorne told him, “She isn’t. Admirals are not as rare as they used to be, not with all the theaters the navy has to oversee. Besides, she comes from a family that has been in the service for generations.”

He did not add that Duncan’s actions at Ganymede played a big role in her fast rise up the ranks.

He tried to push her from his thoughts by firing a serve in a low line drive that Horus missed, scoring a point for Hawthorne.

Horus asked, “Do military ships have the room for courts?”

“Check out the blueprints of a
Kansas
-class battleship and you will find something called an auxiliary room or the like. The admiral who oversaw the design loved handball but couldn’t play, so he would put money on matches. Okay, one serves zero.”

On the next serve, Horus knocked Hawthorne off the line and then went on the offensive, purposely making his older opponent run. By the time an exhausted Hawthorne regained the service line, he trailed by three points.

“Tell me, Commander, how long after your famous battle did you leave the service?”

“Two months after things calmed down they granted me an honorable discharge, which UVI helped with because they wanted me on their team while my name was still a brand.”

Hawthorne’s next serve led to a long volley that he eventually won with a perfect kill shot, but his next serve was lazy and resulted in Horus reclaiming the line.

“So you have worked for Universal Visions for thirteen years?”

“Just about, with the last five on a luxury cruise ship. Look, you’re not writing an unauthorized biography are you?”

“No such thing. Four serves two.”

The Captain scored two points before Hawthorne landed another well-placed shot to knock him off the line.

“Hell of a kill shot.”

“I was not much of a sailor, but I could hit a handball. I served on three different ships in the span of two years because of that kill shot, spending more time in makeshift courts than on any bridge.”

“Did the cruise ship have courts?”

“No, only holographic sports and direct-feed games.”

Horus asked, “Direct feed is that stuff that pumps the images into a brain implant, right?”

“If you have a powerful thinker—implant or chip--we had game machines that could make you feel like you were surfing a hundred-foot wave or flying a race rocket. Okay, two serves six.”

Hawthorne went on a roll with kill shot after kill shot, resulting in eight unanswered points before relinquishing the line.

Horus huffed, “That was nasty. Six serves--what do you have?”

“Ten, I think.”

Captain Horus slowly walked to the serve line, perhaps stalling to catch his breath.

“Have you been out in deep space recently, Commander?”

“No, but I can’t imagine it has changed.”

Horus said, “Space is no longer the exciting new frontier.”

“Is that supposed to mean something?”

“Consider that as soon as you leave Earth you are sealed in a flying tin can, and then you transfer to a ship like this or a passenger carrier. If you are lucky, you are on a corporate yacht with holographic tennis, but you are still inside a container.”

“Shouldn’t you be serving the ball?”

Horus flashed a wry smile but kept talking.

“Those ships take you to a space station or a dome where you are locked inside, and if you want to walk outside you wear a spacesuit, an even smaller container.”

Hawthorne prompted Horus: “You’ve got six; I have ten, serve the ball.”

The Captain returned to his tactic of making his older opponent run, managing four points to tie the game until Hawthorne took serve again.

As he handed over the ball, Horus told him, “Weird, nasty things are happening out here, to the point I’m starting to believe the entire human race is going insane. Last year miners working for Golden Prominence on Io went on strike and rioted, throwing two senior managers into a lava flow. When corporate security arrived they killed two hundred workers, and half were beaten to death.”

Hawthorne bounced the ball, announced, “Tied at ten,” and served an ace at Horus’ left.

“About eight months ago as we delivered food to an energy research complex on Dione, a worker threw an explosive at our drop ship. When they caught him, he said he did it because he was bored. Then again, he might have been sick. With people crammed in tight quarters, any bug that gets up from Earth goes through colonies like wildfire. Last year they ran out of body bags at the deuterium harvester floating around Saturn because of a respiratory virus.”

“That’s horrible,” said Hawthorne without an ounce of sincerity. “Eleven serves ten.”

Horus countered the serve but Hawthorne still scored thanks to another expert kill shot. Now he needed only three points to win the game, but his opponent appeared more interested in other pursuits.

“What do you think explains the rioting every day on Mars?”

Hawthorne said, “Taxes and inflation; the Martian economy is a mess.”

“No, it is because people should not live in domes. Mars was supposed to be terraformed years ago. The government lured those colonists to Mars with promises of land, jobs, and wealth. Instead, they are stuck inside breathing stale air. The suicide rate on Mars is twice the rate on Earth and the favorite method is not an overdose or a bullet to the head but opening an airlock and walking outside.”

“Can I serve now?”

Hawthorne slammed the ball and it came back across court low and fast for a quick point that put him within two of winning.

“Thirteen serves ten.”

Horus countered the next serve with a ceiling shot that drove Hawthorne back. After a short volley, the Captain regained the serve line, trailing by three points.

“Mankind is failing out here, Commander. Most people living and working in space want to return home, but they are trapped.”

“So write a letter to your congressman.”

Horus’ serve led to a volley that exhausted Hawthorne and caused him to miss an easy shot.

“I don’t take passengers often, so I knew something was up when UVI threw a big check at me to transport a corporate executive, a war hero and three specialized scientists. I doubt they need a quantitative biologist or an expert in exo-meteorology on Uranus.”

“I need a serve, Captain,” Hawthorne said between heavy breaths.

Horus obliged and sent an ace down the right side that Hawthorne should have reached, but he did not want to crash into the wall.

“I understand you cannot tell me what is going on, but it is big otherwise you would be sailing on a commercial liner or a private corporate ride, not in secret on a cargo ship.”

“Look, Captain, I don’t care. I was drafted by a press gang, subjected to contractual blackmail, and thrown on this tub—no offense—with only a hint about the big picture. Now let’s play handball, you need three points to win.”

Horus scored the twice, setting the stage for match point, which he served. Hawthorne took two lazy steps and missed, resulting in Horus winning the game, to which the Captain immediately said, “You could have had that. Looks like you gave up.”

Hawthorne wiped sweat from his brow and extended a congratulatory hand but instead of shaking, Horus held tight.

“You didn’t try, Commander, I just had to keep the volleys going and sooner or later you would give up.”

“My days of taking this seriously are over,” and he wrenched his hand free.

“Space has become nothing more than mining, harvesting, and fighting; our spirits are wearing down. The further out I travel, the more it feels like a descent into the circles of Hell.”

“Captain, I do not know why you are telling me this.”

“It needs to be more than resource exploitation, corporate profits, and war. I don’t know what you are up to, but if there is a chance to change things then you must, or eventually all our so-called progress will collapse back on itself.”

10. Wren

Wren swung his legs out from beneath the heavy wool blanket and off the cot. A chilled jolt went through his bones when his bare feet touched the cold metal floor. He then tiptoed two steps to the shelf next to the sink and grabbed a yellow pullover shirt that did not match his gray shorts.

Before he slipped on the shirt, he glanced at the mirror, looking at the Union Jack tattooed on his right shoulder.

Movement caught his eye: Ellen’s leg slipped out from the covers but she still slept.

Her leg was not slender and she had him by fifteen years, but that did not matter to Wren; this was a relationship of convenience and nothing more.

The sex was okay but, then again, he did not have a long track record for comparison. He spent too much of his time foraging alone in the ruins of England. Relationships were rare and his disposition chased off what few opportunities arose.

So yes, sex was nice but he enjoyed their tryst mainly because Kost was a polite listener. She sat through his stories of growing up in England, of learning soccer from his father, trips to the countryside, and visiting relatives in Wales.

His eyes fixed on the Union Jack painted on his skin.

In a rare moment of clarity, he wondered if that symbol really meant soccer, countryside getaways, and family gatherings, or were those memories only dreams constructed from stories. The Cut had chased him from England at the age of thirteen, nearly seventeen years ago. Did he truly remember his home? Was his love for all he had lost genuine, or justification for anger?

He found his eyes in the reflection and he fell into a trance, like staring into an infinite row of reflections, a mirror within a mirror.

What would I have if not my anger?

Even his parents had given up the fight for their native country, accepting the hospitality of North America, a better place than the ghettos of Europe. Their son, however, kept sifting through the ashes for pieces of himself in his homeland’s graveyard.

What had he found in all that time? Frustration, resentment, and rage.

A series of chimes preceded an announcement from Captain Horus, thankfully breaking his trance; Leo Wren did not like mirrors.

“We will arrive at Titan in thirty minutes.”

He pulled on the shirt and exited the cabin, slamming the door behind and probably waking Kost. At first he did not care, but by the time he reached the canteen at the center of the ship he felt guilty, and that was unusual for Leo Wren.