Scott Cleveland - Pale Boundaries

Their blind assumption that Terson strove to embrace the same values contributed more to the gulf between them than the overt rejection he faced off-campus. Reining himself in required constant vigilance, and when that vigilance failed him the consequences were painful and embarrassing.

Virene had dropped him off at the central campus on her way to classes at one of the smaller annexes on the other side of Saint Anatone, expecting the coordination for his exam to last until mid-afternoon. After that they had an appointment with one of the half-dozen reproductive security firms that served Saint Anatone for a free consultation.

Terson considered it prematurely optimistic, but he’d since learned that dangers existed even for potential expectant mothers—not the news he wanted just prior to leaving his wife alone for the better part of a month. The delayed departure served to reduce his stress on that count, somewhat.

Public transportation might get him to their apartment with just enough time to catch the next bus back to Malone to meet her. He decided to head for a tavern he knew of instead where he could get a sandwich and a couple of beers while he waited for Virene without encountering any of his loose-lipped peers. He hadn’t taken more than a dozen steps in that direction when someone fell in next to him.

“Hey, Reilly. Have you talked to Whitman today?”

Whitman’s cautions be damned, Terson wasn’t going to take any more shit. He let the rage flow and spun on the interloper with murder in his eye—and corked it up again, but not before Zarn Vondelis saw the expression on his face and took two long and deliberate steps backward.

“Whoa, I guess you have!” Of all Terson’s classmates, Zarn was the one who least deserved to get unloaded on. He was nearly a decade older than the rest of them, aerospace operations being his second career. The added maturity made him tolerable, and he seemed to have shaken off the environmental zealotry of youth, assuming he’d had it to begin with. If he didn’t know better, Terson would have taken Vondelis for a fellow immigrant. He and Terson had flown together on several occasions and remained one of the few partners Terson hadn’t threatened to stuff out the airlock.

Still, Terson didn’t feel charitable. “You guessed right. What do you want?”

Vondelis stepped back into a friendly proximity and held up a printout. “I picked up our navpoints. You have time to work on the flight plan?”

“I got bumped to second string,” Terson told him.

“I know,” Vondelis said. “I went to Whitman as soon as I heard and told him I’d fly with you. I assumed you knew.”

“First I’ve heard of it.” Whitman probably wanted Terson to sweat a little, or believe that the crew assignment was random because making an exception might be perceived as rewarding bad behavior. But that didn’t explain why Zarn was willing to take a bump to partner with him.

“The first-round schedule conflicts with some personal matters,” Vondelis explained when Terson put the question to him. “I was going to request a reassignment anyway, so I figured I’d go up with you rather than get stuck with a wash-back or somebody like Brichen. I’d have loved to see the look on his face when you shoved him in the airlock.”

Terson didn’t bother to set the facts straight. Sometimes rumors were more advantageous than the truth.

They returned to the flight operations building where they encountered a small crowd gathered around the newly posted second-round assignments. Terson noted relieved expressions on several faces as he and Zarn made their way through. “Poor bastard,” someone snickered.

Mercifully, the chart room was deserted. Zarn logged into one of the navigation consoles and activated its holographic interface. A representation of the Nivian system appeared, showing its planets, their moons, major orbital habitats and significant asteroidal bodies (none of this was to scale, otherwise the orb representing the farthest planet would appear nearly three kilometers from the console).

Nivia Prime held five planets in its gravitational clutch: Fuma; Nivia and its single moon; Caliban, a jovian-class gas giant with five natural and one manmade satellites, none inhabited save Caliban Station; Othello, another gas giant half the size of Caliban with three moons, the largest of which, Iago, was inhabited; and the dim and frigid Hades, orbiting just inside the Kuiper belt.

Zarn entered their assigned navpoints and began plotting a course. Although both team members were expected to collaborate on all aspects of the evaluation, Terson was more than willing to let Zarn handle the lion’s share of the navigating. Terson did not consider strategy his strong suit, but he excelled at execution so Zarn typically deferred to him in matters of tactics—one of the reasons they worked so well together.

The test was straightforward and simple, on the surface: each two-man team received sixteen navigation points spread through the Nivian system. In order to pass, they merely had to approach each point close enough to register their transponder identification with the monitoring system. The reality wasn’t nearly as simple, of course. Their navpoints included several high-traffic destinations where they’d be subject to general Space Traffic Control regulations as well as local procedures. Points would be deducted for any officially noted violations, and the unpredictable nature of public traffic might require them to adjust their flight plan in transit.

Then there were the matters of refueling, re-provisioning, and unavoidable layovers, all requiring some form of docking and another layer of procedures and bureaucracy. When it was all over they would have to endure a three-member panel review of their overall performance, to include efficiency of fuel and time, ability to remain on schedule, response to unforeseen circumstances, and explanations of any documented violations.

In some ways the evaluation began the moment the teams received their navpoints, because high-traffic jumpzones required time-slot requests as far in advance as possible. Those who chose to procrastinate in filing a flight plan could find their carefully crafted route useless if a vital transit slot was already filled.

Five of Terson and Zarn’s navpoints were major traffic centers. The rest were variously uncongested, unrestricted, or unmanned private platforms operated and maintained by Malone itself. Zarn’s preliminary route looked like a grand tour of the Nivian system: from Nivia Station to Caliban, where they would dock at Caliban Station for a two-day layover before jumping back toward the sun to touch the two asteroidal habitats, A-30-Sierra and A-1140-Delta. From the asteroid belt they would pinball through several unmanned navpoints before heading for Othello and land on Iago for five days before their departure window for a flyby of distant Hades. Then inward again, bouncing across several of Malone’s private platforms before returning to Nivia Station. The only one of Nivia’s planets they wouldn’t approach was tiny Fuma, orbiting too close to the primary for safety.

It was nearly time to meet Virene when they finally finished.

“Thanks for doing this,” Terson said.

“Thank you,” Zarn replied. “I hate waiting for those other knuckleheads to get in the mood to do the paperwork.”

“I mean flying with me,” Terson clarified.

“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t trust you,” Zarn told him. “I wanted to talk to you about something else, too, if you’ve got time.”

“I’ve got an appointment with the wife I dare not miss,” Terson apologized.

“No problem; I’ll catch you next time.”

McKeon chose a spot five kilometers up an overgrown trail at the end of a blind ravine where a single gunshot would go unheard and a body undiscovered for years. Dayuki pressed herself back against the unyielding gunner’s seat, curling like a leaf in the hot sun under Hal and McKeon’s inimical gazes.