Vyyda Book 1: The Haver Problem (20 page)

             
The dark reputation of the place spread and held sway with some, including a group of young Earthers in search of a thrill.

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              “I find that difficult to…” Caroline tried to find the right words in response to the tale of Oren Shangh and the founding of Haver as Dorsey had just related it to her.

             
“Believe?” Dorsey asked.

             
“To square with the facts I have,” she said.

             
“Where did your facts come from?”

             
“HSPB intelligence.”

             
“Maybe that’s your problem,” Dorsey suggested.

             
“I can understand…” Caroline would try to be diplomatic, “…your need to…justify, that is, to explain the unseemly things out here.  People in U-Space, I’m sure, want to believe that there’s a reason for the ugliness around them.  That things could be…or used to be more acceptable.”

             
“You’re saying we made this up?” Dorsey asked.

             
“It’s much easier to accept that something good became bad than it is to live with the idea that everything out here started that way.”

             
“You asked me what I know about Haver,” Dorsey said, leaning forward in his seat.

             
“I know.  And I -- ”

             
“Don’t forget:  I was right on the Salginian thing…and you were wrong.”

             
Caroline smiled as politely as she could.

             
They’d finished the second of their displacement jumps on the way to Haver and the craft settled into a stop.

             
“We’ll let it cool now,” Stovall said.  A small vessel with so much ‘punch’ would be safer if the displacement drive cooled between every three or four jumps.  Considering they were in the unfriendly expanse of U-Space, taking extra precautions made sense.

             
Dorsey ran a hand through his hair and rested his head against the back of the form-fitting seat that allowed him to take in the ceiling of the Selphen, flawlessly molded and immaculately clean.

             
As his eyes roamed the craft’s interior, simultaneously admiring the thing and despising the capability to make it, Dorsey’s gaze fell upon the one and only item that seemed out of place:  a thin, curved object which initially seemed to be a lock of dark hair, cut from a head and carelessly left on the deck of the craft.  Yet closer inspection revealed that it wasn’t a lock of hair.  Wedged up against the interior wall, a full three meters from his seat, Dorsey leaned forward as far as he dared to get a better view.  It seemed distinctly organic in nature.

             
There was, in reality, no reason Dorsey should have recognized the object.  It bore no resemblance to anything he’d ever seen in person before.  It was the stem of an apple.  If it was attached to the apple it once held, he could have made sense of it; Dorsey had been exposed to pictures of apples (among other organics) on occasion.  Nevertheless, even without context, independent of its fruit, the object simply looked interesting.  So focused on it was Dorsey that he didn’t hear Caroline Dahl until she’d spoken his name three times – the last one with raised voice:

             
“Professor Jefferson…”

             
He looked up.

             
“If Salginians don’t run Haver…as you say, then why do you suppose the note is written by a Salginian?”

             
“I don’t have any idea,” he said.

             
“That’s it?”

             
“Would you prefer I make something up?”

             
“Transmission,” Stovall said to Caroline, breaking in.

             
Caroline inserted an earpiece and triggered a receptor.  After a moment, her face turned sour.  She removed the earpiece, setting it back on the console in front of her, saying nothing.

             
“What is it?” Stovall asked.

             
Caroline shook her head.

             
“Trouble?”

             
A long pause.  Caroline looked over her shoulder at Dorsey for a moment before answering.

             
“They’re sending Leopold Doone to Earth.”

             
“Earth?” Stovall said, surprised.  “Because of…because of this?”

             
“He’s going to serve as liaison.”

             
“I’m speechless.”

             
“Doone’s from Berlin.  That’s the closest thing to Halliston they could find, I suppose.  Makes sense,” Caroline conceded.

12.

Halliston

             
Leopold Doone enjoyed an advantage that Caroline Dahl could never match.  As an Earther, he was the perfect candidate to travel from HSPB-Luna to the home planet and serve as liaison through the duration of the Haver crisis.  He would follow various contingents of HSPB and Earth officials, answering occasional questions about the Bureau’s Lunar operations (something that could have been done via comms if the Lunar installation wasn’t still under a “slightly relaxed” lockdown) and note developments which he, in turn, could report back to Director Cyril Redd.  At least, that was the point of the trip.

His role was basic, to say the least.  Nevertheless, he would be seen.  He would be seen by the right people.  They would remember Leopold Doone and be aware that he was of Earth and part of the Bureau.  A person with a future.

              Caroline, on the other hand, despite the risk involved with her foray into the unknowns of U-Space in search of an expert who could shed light on the situation with Haver and the bizarre communiqué naming eleven Earthers as hostages, would be largely forgotten.  It didn’t matter if her contribution played an instrumental part in a desirable resolution to the Haver problem.  She was invisible.

             
Doone, as a native of Berlin – the closest major city to the moderately-sized community of Halliston – would be in familiar territory.  Halliston had the unwelcome distinction of being the home of every one of the eleven Earthers identified as hostages on Haver – all of them between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three.  Initially, the idea that all eleven would hail from the same town raised a red flag; it seemed absurd. 

Halliston
was not a major population center.  It was one of the new breed of municipalities, limited in size and built in harmony with its environment, woven purposefully into the post-mass migration landscape that had been reclaimed, as nature had its way on Earth once more.  Stone and wood and glass and clay made up the simple, straightforward buildings of such settlements, and Halliston was the epitome of this new aesthetic.

             
Centered in an area just south of what had once been known as the Glarus Alps, nearly all the residents could trace their roots back to North America and Western Europe prior to the tumult of mass exodus into space.  Yet the population of the quiet hamlet had no inclination to think of themselves as American, Canadian, English or French in heritage.  Those were merely loose associations that held no real meaning in the current age of man.  These people were, quite simply, Hallistonians.

             
Earthers with any business taking them off-planet would depart from lift fields – only to be found in the large cities.  The fields, holding dozens or even hundreds of space elevators, were closely monitored.  They were, after all, the portals separating Earth and everything that lay beyond.

             
Thus, even though it made no sense that the eleven kids from the non-descript town could make it into space undetected, none of them could be found anywhere in Halliston.  They were declared “officially missing” and the communiqué from Haver took on greater credibility. 

             
And then, someone with the Bureau recalled that there was one thing that made Halliston different from virtually every other community of its size.  It didn’t possess a massive “lift field” of the sort found in Berlin or Sydney, but it did have a collection of three, aging space elevators just outside of town, elevators in place for the express purpose of removing waste from planet Earth.  What would have, in years past, been characterized as a garbage dump.

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              Advanced Disposal Conglomerate (ADC) was one of the more forgettable enterprises on Earth, but one which served a key purpose.  The same leaps in technology that allowed for humans to relocate from the home planet also provided the chance to relieve the world of its waste products.

             
The establishment of the ADC facility near Halliston was grudgingly tolerated by most of its citizens.  As long as efforts were made to keep operations hidden from view, complaints were minimal.  In fact, the only visible signs of ADC from Halliston were three glowing cables which rose into the air, through the clouds and out of sight to where they ultimately linked up with a docking station from which Earth’s “shit” (at least the region’s share of it) could be hauled away and flung into an inward spiraling orbit with the sun.  What an improvement over the manner in which refuse was handled in days preceding mass migration.

             
Knowing that the triad of space elevators was so close to Halliston didn’t answer the most critical questions, however, and a small army of HSPB-Earth agents descended on the town to investigate.

             
Visits with the friends and family members of those named on the Haver list ultimately led to the home of Belisch Moles.  Moles was a ‘hanger-on’ of sorts with many of the eleven.  An “annoyance” who frequently managed to tag along on evenings out, making rounds through Halliston’s limited collection of taverns, angling to become a permanent member of the group.

             
Agents found Moles sitting in his parents’ kitchen, a half-drained glass of fermented spreck juice in front of him.  Barely seventeen, Moles came off as an awkward young man with a prominent forehead and unusually small ears.  He began to cry uncontrollably as Bureau personnel made the purpose of their visit clear.

             
What did he know about the missing eleven?  What did he know about Haver?  About the ADC space elevators and the possibility that they’d been accessed for improper travel?

             
Moles tried to answer, but nervousness and endless crying made it difficult for him to get words out.  The senior agent on the scene remedied the impasse by taking a handful of the young man’s hair and slapping him across the face three times in rapid succession. 

V              V              V              V

“I didn’t.  I didn’t do anything wrong.”  It was all the agents could get out of Belisch Moles for the first half hour after slapping him.  They were considering another round of physical abuse to motivate compliance, but decided on promising the kid that he wouldn’t suffer punishment if he divulged everything he knew about the eleven Earthers now on Haver.

             
“They tried to get me to go…but I knew it was wrong,” Moles said, not sounding very convincing.

             
“This was planned?  They weren’t forced to go?”

             
This was the first big question.  How in the hell had a group of somewhat sheltered Hallistonians found themselves on Haver to start with?  Most of the parents involved swore that their son or daughter must have been coerced into departing Earth.  The insanity in willingly leaving their homes for U-Space simply did not exist within these young people.  Or so went the claim.

             
“They went on their own,” Moles said.

             
“You’re sure?”

             
“Yes.”

             
“Why?”

             
“It’s…Haver.  They went to experience Haver,” Moles replied, looking at one of the agents for the first time, as if the answer were clear.  Most Earthers knew little or nothing about the worlds of U-Space.  Haver was the exception.  The powers-that-be made sure the people heard the story of Haver, of the depravity and depths to be found there.  They couldn’t let a good cautionary tale go to waste:  U-Space was a dangerous place, with sub-human denizens.

             
“Trewn Shepherd,” Moles said, ready to give over everything he knew.  “He’s the one you want.  He’s been there more than once.”