Chasing Stars: Chapter 9

  Early next morning, Markus caught Donna in passing in the docking section of Orbital One.   The emergency passed, it was now back to its normal hustle and bustle.  They embraced in a lingering hug for a while before they said anything.  Oblivious travelers passed by them in various directions to various portals to various loading docks.  She had the bleary eyes of someone who had been up all night crying.   He followed up with briefer hugs for his niece and nephew who followed along.  The children seemed stunned, as though they didn’t really understand what was going on.  They must, he thought.  They were all feeling the same sense of stunned disbelief.

  “How is he really?” Donna asked.

  “He’s putting up a strong front,” Markus offered as reassurance.  “You know how he is.”

  “He giving you a hard time?” Donna asked.  Markus thought it was sweet that she would think to care and ask with everything that’s going on.

  “Of course,” he answered with an unconvincing smile.

  “Markus?” Sadhika politely called to him from the other end of the high gloss gleaming white docking bay.

  “We’ll talk later, okay?” he suggested.  “Go see your husband, get settled, then let’s have dinner tonight just the two of us and talk, alright?”

  Donna put a hand on his cheek.  “Sounds good,” she said without a smile.  God she seemed drained, Markus thought.  He reflected on how he probably looked very much the same to her.  “Tonight then.”  She led her children over to the elevators and Markus made his way over to Sadhika.

  “Everything good there?” Sadhika asked.  When she saw the expression Markus gave she clarified: “I mean… considering everything, of course.

  “She’s a strong woman,” he answered with a shrug.  He wasn’t sure what else to say.  “So what’s the plan here?”

  “Well really it’s your show here.  A Bowland team is going to come over and inspect the core casing.  Hopefully they can still certify it for long term flight.”

  “Right, I should know that.”

  “Not really your thing is it.” she observed flatly as she crossed her arms.  Her business mask was reforming.  Markus attempted to stiffen his spine a bit, which was all the more challenging in micro gravity.

  “It’s fine.   Yes, of course.”  He was trying to channel his brother.  “We’ll get over there and inspect the casing.”  He was a little surprised when he saw Sasha floated out of the elevator.  “She’s coming over now?”

  “Not exactly a lot of time left,” Sadhika observed dispassionately.  “She wants to spend as much time on her home as possible before the end.”

  “I suppose that makes sense.”  Markus approached the gurney.  He tried to take her hand, but she withdrew it.

  “I don’t know you,” she stated.  He didn’t sense revulsion or offence, merely that she felt that comforting her was not his place, and he realized she was right.  It was an autonomic action, not deliberate.  For a moment he wondered how much everything he did was like that.

  To Markus’s surprise, she extricated herself from the gurney and began pulling herself to the ship’s shuttle’s airlock.

  “They’ll seem kind of okay for a day or two,” Sadhika told him, “before it really hits.”

  “Right… been through this before?”

  “She hasn’t,” a booming voice trying to be discrete said from behind him.  It was Wiremu.  “but I have.”  It made sense.  With how much Wiremu had galivanted around the solar system in his career it was a wonder he himself hadn’t suffered a similar fate.  Accidental high radiation exposure was about as common as orbing accidents – rare but not unheard of, especially in the Corps.

  “I’ve seen it too many times.  There are worse ways to go, but there are certainly better ones.”

  Sadhika hugged Wiremu and Markus reflected on how much more emotional she was than he was expecting when he first met her, or from what he’d heard of her in the media beforehand.  He wondered if that was just marketing or if this whole experience had cracked her somewhat.   Markus saw In-Su approach Sasha and help her through the airlock and she didn’t protest.  ‘I suppose she does know him,’ he thought.

  Without a word Sadhika followed after them.  Wiremu turned to him.  “Markus.   Circumstances being what they are, nobody would blink at either decision you might make as to whether you’d like to join us.  Ordinarily I’d put some heat on you to decide, but I wanted to let you know that, well… considering everything, we’ve made special arrangements.  We have two replacements lined up.  One is for sure to take Sasha’s spot, but the other is provisional.  It’s been made very clear to her that she may or may not get to go, and that she won’t know for sure right up until the launch.  If you need it, you can take all the time we have left to decide.”

  “Wow.   Thank you.”

  “I wouldn’t normally grant this kind of latitude of course.”  He looked to the side, trying to seem adequately casual.

  “Of course,” Markus said, looking down.

  “But considering what your brother did, what you’ve sacrificed… well, I suppose we feel we owe it to you.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  Wiremu put a hand on his shoulder.  “Your brother is a hero, son.”

  “I know…”   He couldn’t help letting out a soft sigh.

  “Not just saving our perhaps foolish idealistic endeavour you know, but all of the people on this station who would have died if he hadn’t done what he did.”

  “Sure, and his kids would grow up with a father.”  Markus knew how to be polite and act appropriately, but his genuine self was quite negative, and when drained it was hard to keep up any other pretense.

  “Sacrifice is always easy when it’s yourself,” Wiremu said.  “It’s sacrificing others that’s the hard part.  Dying is easy Markus, it’s living that’s hard.  I have no doubt that your brother knew exactly what he was doing.  You don’t think he didn’t weight that when he decided to do what he did?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it to be honest.”

  “Well do think about it.  Your brother knew he was sacrificing his children having a father, his wife having a husband, his brother having a brother.  He did it to save thousands of people, and their loved ones the same fate.   That’s heroism Markus, that’s meaningful sacrifice.  Few people have that kind of opportunity to rise to in their lives, fewer still have it in them to not blink.”

   

  On the trip over to New Horizon Markus had a chance to reflect on what Wiremu had said.   He sat in the back of the shuttle while New Horizon and Bowland staff consulted over casing tolerances and effects of massive proton bombardment on different materials.

  Dying is easy…

  Markus couldn’t stop thinking that to go now, would be to sacrifice on behalf of others all over again.  His brother deprived his children of a father, now he was angling to deprive them of their uncle as well, and for what?  His brother did it to save thousands of lives, Markus wanted to do it to… alleviate his existential boredom?  For a sense of cosmic irony?  It hardly seemed worth it.  If his brother had literally sacrificed his life for the greater good, then maybe Markus really was duty bound to figuratively sacrifice his life for the greater good by staying behind.

  Living is hard…

  Markus felt very acutely that it would have been so much easier to do what Lucas had done.   To just die for something; that would be quick and tolerable.  But to live for something, to serve a purpose you are burdened with, decade after decade, after decade…  the term fate worse than death came to mind.  How much greater was that burden than simply dying.  Did Lucas really understand what he was demanding of his brother?  

  It seemed kind of petty.  Lucas had chosen these burdens for himself, the company, a wife, children.  Markus had actively resisted these burdens and now his brother was trying to shrug them onto him.  But at the same time… Markus had resisted these things because he didn’t feel the call to them.  Now he did.   He felt he could be proud of himself for rising to this challenge, to serving his purpose.  He’d spent his whole life aching for a sense of purpose, now he found himself torn between a purpose he might choose, and one thrust upon him.  It didn’t seem fair.

  The shuttle gently jolted as it touched the airlock on the New Horizon and synced it’s motions to the much larger craft.  Again he was a little surprised by the lack of ceremony, the difference between an orb-liner arrival and their safety announcements, and this private craft merely opening the hatch and letting everyone through.

  He felt he should attempt to play the part; call out to the Bowland Power Systems team and assemble them, issue commands.  The sad reality was that he had no idea what was going on, he was just following the experts in their activities.  Any attempts he might make to lead them would only betray the impotence of his leadership and the weakness of his position.  He instead identified the most senior engineer and pulled up alongside her as they made their way to the core room a little down from the airlock in the main central section of the ship.

  “So what’s the plan Hui Yin?”

  “Pretty straight forward,” she answered.  “We have to disassemble the core, use the electron microscope to examine the entire interior of the reactor casings, and if we find no faults we reassemble the reactor and ready it for a new start up test.”

  “What if you do find faults?”

  “Well, we’re readying a line of production for this class of reactor, but the first one won’t roll off the line for months.  It’s possible we could focus on fabricating a single prototype again for them, but that would throw the company’s finances way out of whack I should think.  Kind of above my pay grade though.  Really the kind of decision only Lucas…”  The engineer became sheepish and seemed reluctant to finish the sentence.

  “I hear you,” he sympathized.  “Way above my pay grade too to be honest.  I’ll ask him what he thinks if it comes to that.  Let’s just hope it doesn’t.”  

  Hui Yin nodded.

  “How can I help?”

  She looked sheepish again.

  “Right, I can’t.”

  Hui Yin appeared to attempt several times to say something reassuring, but kept stopping.

  “It’s alright, you’re not wrong.  I guess there’s not much I can do other than stand around and be officially there,” he sighed.  That was kind of the problem.  “You’re pretty much the senior engineer at Bowland aren’t you?”

  “Among them,” she modestly shrugged.

  “Involved in the business side at all?”  Markus figured he better get to know the senior staff if he was really going to pretend to be leading them.  He’d also needed to know who he could get to actually run things.

  “Right, you’re pretty um… hands off.” she politely remarked.  “There are more senior engineers, but I am the chief liaison between tech and business.  I have an MBA in addition to my engineering PhD.  I actually helped with the business plan for these New Horizon class reactors.”

  “Really,” he said as they reached the heavily shielded core room entrance.  “Want to take over the company for me?” he teased as he opened the door for her.

  She stammered something about seeking a path for advancement but not presuming anything and he told her to relax.  She blushed ever so slightly before leading the rest of the team into the core room.   

  In that moment he saw how silly it was for his brother to insist on the company remaining ‘in the family’.   It was after all a Fortune 100 massive global conglomerate not a fiefdom.  There was no strict ethical code Markus was trying to keep the company to, it was just pure ego he inherited from their father.   Bowland was the name, so a Bowland had to sit in the big chair.  Hui Yin had spent a career gaining the training and experience required to lead such a tech behemoth, and he was grooming his daughter to take it over as soon as possible?  He thought about all of the resentment that would engender in the company from people like Hui Yin.  Maybe not at first, but as their opportunities were superseded by less experienced and less qualified people of the correct blood line, well of course they would.

  Lucas had earned his place there, basically worked his way up from the mail room; he’d been there forever and knew every facet of the company in and out.  Something that big and powerful probably really shouldn’t be ‘kept in the family’.  He made a mental note to ask Sadhika about that, Sasha as well if he had the opportunity.

  “You all set?” Markus asked Hui Yin.  

  “Yes sir, I think we have everything we need here.” she answered without looking up from her work.

  Markus felt incredibly self-conscious over being called ‘sir’.  He’d childishly enjoyed ‘sticking it to the man’ his whole life, he didn’t know if he could ever get comfortable being the man.   “Alright well if there’s nothing I can do beyond trying not to get in the way, I have other business on this ship.”   The truth was he just had no interest in being there and there was plenty more ship for him to see.

  “I think we’re good sir, thank you.”

   

  Markus found himself aimlessly wandering the corridors down in the habitat ring.   Inevitably he came to one of the heavy door entrances to the arboretum and entered.  He took a more leisurely stroll through this time, stopping to read all of the little signs explain what was growing where, and really soaking in the scale of what they’d accomplished here.  At some point he began to hear voices not too far off and followed them.

  He came across a funeral service of sorts for Sasha.  The big 4 were all there, Sasha sitting in a wheelchair, flanked by In-Su, Wiremu and Sadhika, as well as several dozen or other crew members.  He slid in behind the crowd and listened.

  They were eulogizing Sasha.  Peeking between people he could see that they’d already fabricated a headstone.   It looked remarkably flimsy and impermanent, and as he listened, he realized that they were in fact roasting her.

  “You’ve always been a tough cookie Sasha,” Wiremu remarked.  “I remember when we were playing supposedly touch football, but you took it so seriously you broke someone’s nose!”  Everyone laughed that sad laugh one does when it is genuine, but merely a momentary reprieve from an ocean of sadness.  “You’ve always had a chip on your shoulder, always been more competitive than was good for you, but hell that’s always been what I liked best about you, what we had in common and why we got along so well…  you are going to be missed my dear.”

  “We’ve known each other eight years Sasha,” Sadhika said, “and in that time you’ve become like a sister to me.  Hell, I’m much closer to you than I am to any of my actual sisters.  We’ve always been so busy, always so focused on the mission… I was looking forward to getting to know you better once we were underway and things settled down.  That was supposed to be our time, you know?  Oh well, guess you’re the lucky one, you get to serve your purpose and get out easy.   Unlike all of the rest of us who have to stick around and wait to die in the deep void, am I right?”  Like the others she was trying to keep it lighthearted.   Markus could tell she was on the verge of tears but so far managing to keep it together.

  Markus listened respectfully as some of the others paid their respects with remembrances and jokes which had trouble landing.  He’d never seen or heard of this sort of pre-funeral but he supposed it made sense if death was assured and imminent.  But he imagined it also took a certain disposition to engage with it, a reluctance to deny the inevitable.  Perhaps it was only something those who truly stared into the void could comfortably do.  A lot of people noticed him there and none protested, leaving him feeling less and less like he was intruding.

  Eventually the gathering disbanded.  Sadhika approached him and motioned for him to join her as she walked away.

  “I was having fun with our little cat and mouse game, you know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Our little will they, won’t they?”

  “Ah.”   He understood.

  “I’d like to get back to that sometime.” she offered leadingly.

  “I imagine if I come along, we’ll have plenty of time to see how that game plays out.”

  “Still thinking about it then?” she asked.

  He couldn’t tell if she was a little surprised he was still considering going, or a little surprised he was still considering staying.

  “You know, it’s weird.  Before all of this, everyone was very certain one way or the other what I was supposed to do.   Now… now everyone is way too accommodating, way too understanding of ‘whatever I choose’.  Well everyone aside from my brother of course.”

  Sadhika laughed.  It was the first time he’d heard her charming genuine laugh since the incident.  He’d missed it.

  “I actually wanted to talk to you about one aspect of that in particular.”

  “Shoot.”

  “My brother is insisting that the company ‘stay in the family’ as he puts it.  I thought it made sense but I’d never really thought about it.  But today I was talking to one of our lead engineers, and she seems like a perfect candidate to lead the company going forward, and I’m sure she’s not the only one.   It made sense for Lucas to take it over.   He was involved early on, lived and breathed the company, it was all he ever wanted to do.  For me to lead it myself though?  Disastrous…  I’d just need to be a figurehead he says until his daughter is ready to take everything over and I’m thinking… what if I stay so she can take over eventually, but she decides she doesn’t want to?  What if she wants to but just doesn’t have the right stuff?”

  “Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves…” Sadhika uttered.

  “What’s that?” 

  “Succession planning is a common problem in business.  I read once that only ten percent of companies remain in family control by the third generation.  It was a big problem in old monarchy days too.  The first monarch to rise has undisputed authority; they’ve got the juice to rule since they had what it took to seize power in the first place.  Then they hand that authority and power over to their handpicked successor and that can go pretty well.  But by the time of the third generation, there’s sibling rivalry, there’s cousins, the original person who seized power is no longer around to guide things.  It all turns to inward backstabbing… sometimes literally.  At this point only the most ruthless people make it to the throne, who inevitably turn out to be the worst tyrants.  

  “In truth this is the core rationale for our simulants on board,” she further explained.   “By the time the human crew arrive on the planet they will have suffered several generations of this.  We are the hardened dedicated explorers who put it all together in the first place.  We’re that first generation.  The real purpose of the simulants is to reintroduce our first-generation spirit into the third and fourth generation crew who will ultimately arrive.”

  Markus nodded thoughtfully.  “So what’s your plan for Brahma now?” he asked.

  “No plans,” she quickly replied.  “I have no plan for Brahma, I’m done with it.  I founded it, I made it what it was, and then I liquidated my entire stake in it to fund New Horizon.  It’s entirely public now, and I figure that’s probably for the best.  Not as best as me still running it of course,” she winked, “but other than that for the best.  I have no children… sure if one of them took after me so well that they were a natural fit, like your brother I suppose, then sure it might make sense.   But trying to keep a Sengupta in charge just out of… what, ego?  And at the expense of a better leader for the company?  Seems pretty silly to me.”

  After a moment she realized who she was talking about and added a: “No offence,” which Markus waved off.

  “Do you regret not having children?” Markus asked.

  “Maybe a little, but I just think about everything I’ve accomplished, everything I couldn’t have if I’d been busy mothering and… no, I don’t think so.   Besides, I certainly will on the mission once we’re under way.  We all will, it’s part of the deal.”

  “Right.”   Markus acknowledged.  “Almost forgotten about that part of the mission.

  “What about you,” she asked.  “Regret not having children?”

  “A little… maybe.  I don’t know.   It was always the contingencies that concerned me.  What if I have them with the wrong person, what if they turn out a way I don’t like?   The task of figuring out how to shield them from the worst impulses of society while also not over sheltering them… that all seemed like such a minefield.”

  “We intend and expect life on the ship to be that of one big extended family.  You wouldn’t be alone in raising them if you came along.  Our society would be so closed we could be pretty deliberate about how we raised them and what values we tried to instill.  It will be a communal effort.”

  “Sounds like something I would balk at if I was a child there, something I would want to rebel against.”

  “Rebel how?” she laughed darkly.  “There’s nowhere to go.”

  “True…   you know, what I really wish I could do is clone and raise myself.  I’ve always wondered how I could have turned out if I’d been raised differently.  I’ve always felt that I have this… this potential that I’ve never figured out how to harness… ever since reading about twin studies in university psychology I’ve had this fantasy about cloning several version of myself and raising them differently to see how I would have turned out.”

  “It’s pretty fucked up to instrumentalize a person like that Markus… to create a life just to satisfy your own curious ambitions.”

  “Are you kidding me right now?” Markus asked, a little taken aback.

  “What?”

  “What do you think you’re doing with the children you’re going to bring into the world- no, into a ship not a world.  What do you think you’re doing to those born along the way?  You are condemning them to a life devoid of any choice, a life utterly devoid of meaningful prospects, completely instrumentalized for your grand ambitions.  I lament how open ended my life has been sometimes sure, sometimes hate the burden of having to figure shit out for myself in an indifferent ambiguous universe, but… it sure seems preferable to what you’re planning to subject your own heirs to.”

  Sadhika didn’t seem to take offence.  She seemed to wear the horror of it with knowing heaviness.

  “I know,” she said softly.  “It’s been discussed at length.  We know exactly what we’re doing, and we know what it means.”  She stiffened somewhat.  “But we will love them, and we will do whatever we can to mitigate the harm and make them understand.”

  “Right,” Markus felt the urge to apologize but resisted.  “Of course you will.”  After they stood alone in the arboretum for moments which felt much longer than their objective value, he suggested they go see how the technicians were doing in the core room.  If there were any serious problems, they should have detected them by now.   Sadhika agreed.

  “You know Markus,” Sadhika spoke up once they’d gotten underway.  “There’s another option you don’t seem to have considered.”

  “Oh?” he asked.

  “Yeah, lie.   Just lie to him.  Tell him you’ll do everything he asks and let him die believing that, then do whatever you really want.”  She didn’t look at him while suggesting this.

  “How… utilitarian of you,” was all he could say at first.  “I suppose it makes sense on paper.  Is that what you’d want if you were him?”

  “Hell no,” she quickly answered.  “Tell me the truth and let me fight over it to my dying breath.”

  Markus chuckled.  “I like you.”   

  Sadhika smiled back at him with that irresistibly mischievous smile for the first time since before the accident.  “Of course you do.”

  “I expect my brother would feel the same way.  I certainly do.  I don’t think I could get on with anyone who didn’t.”

  “I wouldn’t want anyone on this ship who felt any different.”