Midway: Chapter 20

  The day after Johannes’ public address, Dhika came to visit Alissa in the Foods Bio-Lab where she spent the majority of her body hours.  This is where they grew their synthetic meat (affectionately referred to as ‘schmeat’), and their synthetic milk (likewise known as ‘schmilk’) from which they also derived their other dairy products like cheese and butter.  Both of these technologies had been developed on Earth out of both environmental necessity and economic practicality, but on a ship like the New Horizon they were absolutely essential.  The prospect of raising and sustaining large animals just to eat them or extract their milk was a far more impractical practice on the ship than it had ever been on Earth.

  This was Alissa’s preferred body hours duty and she signed up for it whenever she could.  It was her preference because she valued the private time which the job allowed her.   She wasn’t afraid of or disinterested in other people, she just enjoyed having at least some of her time to herself.   It was especially important for her to regularly get time to herself more recently since she’d moved in with Nusrah.   She enjoyed living with him and she enjoyed his company immensely (even if she wasn’t particularly expressive of it), but were she deprived of her alone time she suspected her enjoyment of her living situation would sharply decline.

  The actual work she enjoyed too.  It was physical but not strenuous and if she did it right, it wasn’t dirty or messy.  The job consisted of testing the protein bath in which the schmeats were grown for nutrient and hormone concentration, temperature and pH, as well as testing for any pathogens, which were rare given the hermetic nature of the ship, but protocol called for testing nonetheless.  Human beings themselves are spaceships for all sorts of bacteria in their gut and on their skin, to the point that numerically (if not by weight or volume), the vast majority of the cells which constitute a person, are in fact bacterial cells and not human ones.

  Each meter by half meter, thirty centimeter deep pan had to be checked every few days, and about once a month on days like today, a whole series of dozen tray rows had to be harvested and reset.  One by one Alissa pulled down a tray and disconnected the hoses feeding nutrients to the schmeat and carrying away the waste materials.  She then dumped the quivering rectangular mass of muscle and fat tissues onto the section of the stainless steel counter in the middle of the room in which a weight scale was embedded.  After logging the weight (the scale and her thirty centimeter across medium scroll propped up beside her were both linked to her PAN), she would slide it onto a stainless steel baking sheet, and lift it onto a rolling rack which she would later take to the kitchen and put into cold storage.   It was actually the kitchen staff’s job to store away the schmeat, but her task didn’t feel complete to her unless she did this last step herself.

  Today she was pulling the pork, but the current row she was working on was being switched over to lamb.  She would normally replace whatever kind of schmeat was being pulled with the same kind again (be it beef, chicken, salmon, or some other kinds of fish), but of late there had been a decreasing demand for pork in the dining hall and some people suggested they’d like to see more lamb offered.  Although they also had the ability to create the meat of animals which had been de-extincted on Earth before the ship left, it was a novelty which they rarely indulged in.  Every once in a while the schmeat technicians were pestered enough to actually go ahead and produce a run of woolly mammoth meat, which then gave everyone the opportunity to remember that they never really liked it all that much.

  After putting the tub back onto the shelf and refitting the hoses to the nozzles on its side, she filled the tub halfway with the nutrient bath, and dropped in the centre a small prepared embryonic package of stem cells.   The package was less than a centimeter cubed, and was produced by the staff in the genetics lab.  In a month or so this ‘seed’ would grow to refill the tub again at which point it would need to be harvested once more.  After restarting the support system which kept the nutrient bath circulating and at the right temperature, she then set to work harvesting the next tray.

  Alissa was ambivalent about seeing Dhika when the door opened.  It was an intrusion into her alone time and besides, she wasn’t a particularly big fan of Dhika in any case.  Dhika had never done anything to earn her dislike, and Alissa thus appropriately kept her feelings tightly to herself.  She didn’t harbour any particularly active dislike of the woman; it was more the case that Alissa had always viewed her as something of a rival and competitor.  She could never be sure how the two stacked up against each other in the eyes of the elders.  The two were the most prominent younger women on the ship and this naturally put them at odds, at least that’s how Alissa saw it.  Added to this was the fact that Dhika’s technical prowess was as unparalleled as Alissa’s physical and tactical prowess.  They were both masters of their own incommensurable domains; one a wizard, the other a warrior.

  They were also both natural leaders.  Alissa was hard, steel nerved and full of resolve and determined will.   Dhika on the other hand was soft, empathic, and a strong communicator and team builder.  Alissa didn’t begrudge Dhika this or view it as a weakness, but it was nonetheless a pronounced difference between them; they had very different styles.  Although it was probably a long time in the future to think about, Alissa imagined that when the time eventually came, it would be the two of them who would wind up being in competition for the matriarchy when Maharet died.  With some minor resentment, Alissa figured it would be Dhika’s almost by default.  She was after all Maharet’s daughter, and dynasties seemed to have an inexplicable appeal to a lot of people on the ship.  She liked Anaru Tynes well enough, but he was another example of the growing dynastic trend on the ship.  

  There was no official allowance for privilege based on what family one came from on the ship, and nominally it was a perfect meritocracy where everyone was respected and promoted according to their own accomplishments.  However, it just so happened that the most important positions on the ship disproportionately went to those with a principle mission founder in their family background.  Anaru Tynes was the grandson of the original captain and now he was captain himself for the next fifty years or so.  Maharet was the daughter of the original Sadhika Sengupta, and she wound up succeeding her as the matriarch.  It only made sense that her daughter would eventually succeed her in the same position, and instead of Alissa.

  In fact, the only family who had grown to prominence since the launch was old Johannes’.  Apparently his father had been a mere wildcard admission like all four of Alissa’s grandparents, and Johannes had become the patriarch, one of the three most powerful positions on the ship.  By all accounts he had earned it, but Alissa somehow could only really ever see him as a born politician and a true believer in the mission.  She’d once heard somebody say that Johannes had come out of the womb campaigning for the patriarchy.  A dramatic exaggeration maybe, but it betrayed the obscured feelings about him which armed the joke. 

  But even so, his father Markus had at the last minute replaced the genetics department head and had gained some greater status from the outset above and beyond any ordinary wildcard, which Alissa figured must have benefitted Johannes to some degree.  Alissa herself came from no such privilege, and she felt as though she continued to have none.  Her own grandparents had been common wildcard admissions, just four out of the over a million people who applied, and the six thousand of them who were impressive enough to the founders to enter the lottery for the fifty wildcard spots. They and her parents all served their brain and body hours diligently and enthusiastically, and really believed in the New Horizon mission and while Alissa did as well, she did much less so.  She thought it was a worthy cause and something the universe was probably better off for and all that… but she herself wouldn’t have chosen to launch.   In fact in her teen years, she’d had a few bouts of depression related to wishing she’d been born on Earth instead of on the ship.

  When she saw Dhika enter the room, her mind immediately went to Tycho and maybe, she briefly admitted to herself, this was the true source of her resentment towards Dhika, if she was to be perfectly honest with herself.  Long before she’d paired with Nusrah, she’d been very attracted to Tycho.   She found him physically attractive, but beyond that she felt a certain indescribable kinship and connection with him.   There was just something she felt she understood about his indifference to things, and that it was something they shared.  She figured they were probably the two on the ship who most resented being born on it.   

  She admired his unassuming nature and the way he always seemed to be able to float overtop of the dull minutia of life on the ship, and the way he always seemed to be off in his own private world.  Long ago she’d given up on him though, and had since sincerely fallen in love with Nusrah, but back in the day when she was far younger and far less wise; she would have done anything to find her way into Tycho’s heart.   Sometimes though she reflected, it’d seemed as though he didn’t have one for her to find her way into at all.

  Now it was rumoured that there was something going on between Tycho and Dhika.   Rumors were just rumors of course, but it was no secret that Dhika’d had her eyes on him since they were all kids and she first discovered the boys… and all the boys discovered Dhika.  Besides whatever resentment Alissa may have had towards Dhika based on her generally being desired by virtually every man on the ship, it secretly delighted Alissa that Dhika appeared to be continually snubbed by Tycho, and she could only hope that this trend would continue.  She well understood the pettiness of this attitude, but it was a small indulgence which she allowed herself.

  “Hello Dhika, what can I do for you?” she asked, as usual she was genuinely trying to be friendly.

  “Well…,” Dhika said as she pulled up a stool and tentatively perching herself on it slowly and thoughtfully.  “Actually… I’ve been thinking about Uzodimma, about him being the murderer… I didn’t know him all that well, did you?”

  Alissa finished setting up the new batch of schmeat, and then pulled up a stool herself to take a break.  “Nope,” she admitted.  “He became the music teacher long after you and I were in secondary school.  Never really had much do with him.”

  “Do you think they got the right guy?” Dhika asked.

  “I’ve no reason to doubt it…” was all Alissa could bring herself to say.   Truth be told, she really hadn’t thought about it all that much.

  “You don’t sound very convinced.”

  “Neither do you…  I take it you have your doubts?” Alissa asked.

  “Well, in some ways it makes sense, I mean… why would he not plead his innocence if he was innocent?”  It was the best argument she could make.  “From what I hear, when they accused him he just went quiet and… just accepted it without confirming anything.  That’s weird, at best.  Beyond that though, I guess I just have to trust Johannes, Anaru, and my mom’s judgement.   If they’re sure I think I should be able to put a lot of stock in that.”  It was a sincere statement, but it came out sounding like a question.

  “But…” was all Alissa would offer.  She could tell that there was something Dhika wanted to say but wasn’t sure how to.

  “But… I don’t know how it could be Adewunmi.  I was thorough when I put together for Anaru and Johannes the list of people I thought had the technical prowess to pull off reprogramming the Brainchip logs, and he definitely wasn’t on it.  Not even close.  As far as I know he doesn’t have any more expertise in computer science than anyone else on the ship does.  I mean sure, with enough independent research and self-training, just about anybody could get to that level, but… oh I just don’t know.  It’s probably silly, I’m sure he’s the guy.  He must be the guy.  He’s gotta be the guy…”

  “Hmm, I didn’t know you’d done that for them,” Alissa commented, “did they get you to do anything else for them?”

  “No... well actually, now that I think about it, a few days before I found out about the murder Johannes had me unlock a somewhat mysterious scroll… it’d had its transceiver burned out and was encrypted to a passcode when he turned it on…  As soon as I unlocked it he took it back before I could see anything.  He seemed very concerned that I not see what was on it.   Now that I think about it I’m sure it must have had something to do with the murder…”

  “But what?  Could have been anything on that pad… oh well, you said yourself that he would have attempted to defend himself if he wasn’t guilty, right?  As I recall all the people you though could have done the Brainchip reprogramming were excluded one way or another and couldn’t have done it.  So presumably whoever did would have had to teach themselves how to, right?  If that’s the case, then it could have been Uzodimma as easily as it could have been anybody else.”

  “That’s true I guess… although for the record I don’t know how they excluded all the people on the list I gave them.  I excluded a lot of them with Anaru via the cameras but the rest… I never heard anything else.”