From Afar - Chapter 1

From Afar

Chapter I

The admiral’s office was up two flights of stairs and down the hall. Tag’s footsteps were muffled in the deep pile carpet. The corridor walls of seamless glass looked out to a stunning view of New Washington, shiny towers of steel and glass winking in the midday sun. At street level, people scurried between buildings, like the tiny insects that inhabited the sand dunes that shielded the city from the strong tides of the inland sea to the north. All this was as different from Tag’s homeland as the hermetically sealed ships cruising the vast space between the stars were from the ancient schooners that had plied earth’s seas.

Tag came from Pastoral, a colony, like its name suggested, known for its rolling farmland and simple agricultural life. In fact it was almost unheard of for a citizen of Pastoral to be in the fleet. Tag didn’t know of any, but with thousands serving, there had to be a few others. Not everyone was suited to a life herding cows. They weren’t really cows, no  relationship to Bos primigenius, but they did provide milk, meat, and leather. Their shaggy pelts draped the floors and walls of the farmers’ simple homes. 

Maybe the admiral wanted to see him to question his loyalty to the fleet. Tag had thought the worst of that was over four years ago when he applied for officer training. He’d already lived off Pastoral for six years, but the trilled r’s of his childhood language gave away his origin. Citizens of Pastoral were avowed pacifists, and even though the fleet had never been used for war, its upper echelons were filled with the military type, and its charter included defending the ten colonies from hostile aliens. Someone could have reported him as a potential subversive force. There were certainly those in the fleet that disparaged its current scientific focus. 

Tag straightened his tunic, ran a hand over his cowlick to flatten the stray locks, and knocked on the solid door, not the inviting glass or screen mesh that was more common in office complexes. 

“Come in,” sounded through the door, muffled but not hostile.

Tag wiped his hand on his pants; he was already starting to sweat. He pushed the door open. A fellow lieutenant sat behind a desk, her eyes on the multiple video screens against the far wall as she talked to the empty space. She held up a finger, indicating for Tag to be quiet as she continued to drone on about some weather phenomena on the far side of Hawkins, a sparsely populated colony plagued by violent dust storms.

“Sorry,” the lieutenant finally said, tucking escaping strands of black hair behind her ear. “It’s my job to monitor these news reports and compile a summary for the admiral along with conducting all his correspondence, arranging meetings with difficult dignitaries, and annotating reports from across the galaxy. Everybody always complements Admiral Harper on his wonderful efficiency. I’m it, and I best get you escorted to the meeting or his and my vaunted efficiency will drop a peg. Oh, stop looking so worried,” she said, as she gestured Tag back to the corridor. “Harper can be a bit pompous, but he’s a nice guy, and half the brass in New Washington wouldn’t be here if you were in some kind of trouble.”

“That’s comforting,” Tag said, managing a feeble smile. 

“Buck up, kid. Maybe you’ve won a medal or something.” The lieutenant smiled at Tag. She wasn’t more than a year or two older than Tag, and her rank was the same, but she displayed an easy, relaxed camaraderie and confidence that made Tag envious. He was always the outsider; it was his upbringing he suspected, but it didn’t stop him from wishing he could be easier with people, less guarded and less reserved.

She slid an opaque glass door open, and they entered a conference room dominated by a large oval table of a fine, high gloss wood. On Pastoral, they harvested the forests for fuel and building materials, but here on New Terra forests were few and most wood products were a composite from a reedy type plant that dominated the southern hemisphere.

“It’s walnut,” a tall woman in civilian clothes said. “I understand it came from Annapolis.”

Tag looked at her blankly for a moment before he realized that she meant Annapolis on Earth and that the Secretary of State was casually talking to him about the wood in a table.

“In the beginning certain goods were brought out to remind people of home. It’s surprising and depressing how many of them represent military might. Have you walked down Central Avenue? Almost every statue is a war hero: Grant, Lee, Napoleon, Peter the Great, Admiral Nelson.”

“Napoleon lost, ma’am. I hardly see him as a hero.”

“So you know your history?”

“Enough to know Napoleon and his disastrous campaign to the east,” Tag said, unwilling to challenge his inquisitor. He had advanced degrees in anthropology and cultural and regional geography. Tag was sure everyone in this meeting would have been briefed on his qualifications; even though, Tag himself didn’t think they were exceptional. He’d left his home world at eighteen, the earliest he could be considered an adult anywhere in the Alliance, continued his education on New Terra, and joined the fleet. It seemed unremarkable and unexciting. 

“From your records, I’m sure you know a few more details than you are currently sharing. I have read your papers.”

“Yes,” Tag said. He’d written several papers and as far as he knew they’d never left the circuits of the university computers.

“If I understand your thesis correctly, you believe that civilizations, especially advanced technically empowered civilizations, follow only a few established patterns.”

“That is correct.” It was a terrible simplification, but at least on the most surface level was correct. “The ten colonies that make up the Alliance, granted they all were originally from Earth, follow these established patterns.”

“Yes, but your argument goes further than that to encompass all possible civilizations.”

“Not exactly. All civilizations with which we could interact.” Tag studied the Secretary of State’s face. Had they possibly encountered another civilization? Was that the reason for the meeting? He took a quick look around the conference room. It was a sea of the dark purple uniforms of the fleet, interspersed with the occasional civilian. None of the fleet members were familiar; he’d never met them in person. He wasn’t that important. He did recognize several from the vid news -- full admirals all of them. No, against the far wall was a captain; she had strange orange hued skin of the genetically modified people of Oros. The first generation of Orosians had been devastated by that planet’s sun. The climate was similar to ancient Earth, at least according to the scientific literature: the same distance from its sun with a similar mass and energy output. However for humans unprotected from its rays, the rate of mutation was fifty fold greater than expected. Genetic engineering had saved the human population, but it had created an orange skinned race with amber to golden eyes.

Further speculation about the crowd and the reason for inviting a lowly lieutenant was cut short by the arrival of Admiral Harper at Tag’s elbow. Harper was from New Terra, home to most of the high level brass, and like most Terrans, he was bronze skinned with blue eyes and fair hair. On Pastoral, genetic manipulation was forbidden; it was common place on the other worlds.

“Lieutenant Tag.” The Admiral acted as if he were reading Tag’s nameplate; even though ,Tag knew that had to be impossible. Tag was sure each one of these admirals, weighted down with silver shoulder bars, was familiar with his service history. They could probably tell Tag what he ate for lunch one month ago and who ate with him. “My reports are accurate that you have no second name.”

“I was born and raised on Pastoral. Our naming conventions preclude a second name until marriage. As I am single, I would still be considered under my parents' jurisdiction if I hadn’t left my home world.”

“I understand that you cannot return.”

“That is correct, but I assume you are aware of all this from my service record.”

Admiral Harper smiled, or maybe it was a grimace. It wasn’t friendly or warm, more an expression of exasperation, and he laughed short and sharp, a noise that would drive children and small animals for cover. “If you read as many of these reports as I do, you would realize that they are frequently wildly inaccurate. Sometimes I even wonder if we’re employing a team of fiction writers to produce them. Come, sit down. We need to get this meeting underway.”

Tag was seated between the captain and his former university tutor. Wayne Adams was dressed in the robes of the federal university; the black cloth with gold and green trim fell off him in waves. His hands, wrinkled with age, poked out of the billowing sleeves. His pale blue eyes were marred by the fine scarring of repeated surgeries to correct his worsening near sightedness, but even with the aged scholar’s fogged vision, his expression was keen, and he leaned over and whispered, “I wish it were I, but alas I was considered too old for the position.” He snorted. “According to all the brass I’m ready to be put out to pasture.” 

Tag nodded and managed a simple word of greeting. Professor Adams was a renowned expert on civilizations, including alien civilizations, not that an organized alien civilization had ever been found. They’d found plenty of life but no evidence of intelligent life, unless the rumors circulating among the bored and the crazy were true. 

Admiral Stockton at the far end of the oval table banged a spoon against the pitcher of ice water, and the table fell immediately silent. Tag had never seen her in person, but he recognized her from the news vids with her exceptional height and striking silver hair. On Pastoral, hair grayed with age. Tag remembered the faint streaks of gray in his mother’s hair and the innocence of his younger brother asking their mother why her hair was two toned. His father’s hair had been thinning, exposing more of his craggy forehead and emphasizing the severity of his expression. Tag’s fingers unconsciously slipped toward his own close cropped hair. His hair had started to lose its boyish thickness, but somehow taking a hair restorer seemed wrong.

Tag may have left his home world, and therefore at least publicly rejected the antiquated views of that world, but Tag still couldn’t bring himself to take the hair restorers. No one had commented on his receding hairline or the occasional strands of gray. Probably for the others, they weren’t noticeable yet.

“Please. We have much to cover.” Admiral Stockton’s voice was bold and strong just as she sounded on the news feeds. “We have much to cover this afternoon,” she repeated. “Let me remind all of you, especially my fellow members of the space services, that you are all bound to secrecy by your oath to the Alliance. Nothing that is said may leave the confines of this room.” Admiral Stockton seemed to look directly at Tag as she said this. 

Tag, with the exception of the captain sitting to his left, was by far the youngest and the lowest rank seated at the table, and of course he was the only Pastoon, but that was hardly unusual Pastoons didn’t leave Pastoral because there was no return. 

“Lieutenant Tag, you are aware of your oath and your responsibilities to the Alliance?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Tag said in a clear, level voice. He didn’t add that it would have been foolhardy to invite him to such a meeting if they had any questions about either his discretion or his loyalty. 

“Ever since our discovery of the ability to harness the additional dimensions of the universe to circumvent the limits of Einsteinian physics, there had been speculation that other intelligent beings must also be able to travel the galaxy, and it would only be a matter of time before we encountered alien cultures. Until fifty years ago, the closest we’d come to finding organized civilization was the bee colonies on Nimbus III.

“As I’m sure you are aware of from your history classes, 175 years ago we had a pilot program to send manned missions to the edge of our known space; beyond the areas where Einstein’s relativity effect could be easily mitigated by the additional dimensions of space and time. These men and woman knew that they were unlikely to return, or if they did return their own generation would be deceased, while they would be in their forties and fifties.”

Tag had read about these missions. The information available to the general public reported several teams were lost, and the remaining found no signs of civilization. The program had long since been discontinued; the final vestiges of it vanished when the final traveler had returned.

 In the classified material only available to Tag as both a scholar and a fleet member, a grimmer tale unfolded. Each team had consisted of an established couple, believed to be the most stable social element or at least according to the research. Of the six teams that had been sent out, three teams had returned. Four individuals had committed suicide within one year of returning to New Terra, and the third pair had joined a religious cult never to be heard from again. 

“Six months ago,” the admiral continued, “an unknown vessel appeared in quadrant F-25.” This was the access point to the old space lanes to the western side of the galaxy. Few ships ventured into the area as currently the focus was on the regions to the east with greater star density and accessibility. To go west meant multiple shifts through the twisted folds of space before arriving at areas with dense star populations and the inexorable plague of shifting time.

Admiral Stockton took a long sip of water. The water droplets beaded on her red lips for a moment before she spoke again. “The ship was intercepted by our defense forces outside the perimeter of our solar system without a struggle, and the crew and cargo were detained in a secure area. Alien civilization is no longer speculation.”

Tag drew a sharp breath. No one else in the room reacted as if they were surprised; they must have known already. Professor Adams grabbed Tag’s wrist and squeezed. “You’ll have the opportunity for scientific investigation of what all the rest of us have only been able to imagine and hypothesize,” he whispered.

“This vessel carried a crew of six and the remains of a Traveler team,” the admiral continued. “They are currently being held in a secure facility outside of New Washington. The government approached Professor Adams as a renowned expert on civilizations to assist with the interrogations. It was he who suggested you, Lieutenant Tag, as his most promising student.”

Suggested for what? He was a lieutenant. What did the power elite want with him? “Admiral, how may I be of assistance?”

“You have no remaining family ties or dependents?” the admiral asked.

“No, I’ve had no contact with my family since I left Pastoral. I of course have friends in the service, but I’m not currently in a union with anyone, nor am I planning to join such a union.” Friends was too strong a word; he had acquaintances. He’d had roommates in school and shipboard, but he didn’t form those easy and raucous friendships common to Terrans and Orosians in the fleet. Couples didn’t pan out despite all the talk of their inherent stability. Headquarters made some attempt to post couples together, but one career or another usually led to separation and dissolution of the union. Shipboard liaisons formed and dissolved faster than the speed of light. After the first month, Tag had lost count of his latest roommate’s flings.

“Would it be difficult for you to be off world for an extended period of time?” Admiral Stockton asked.

“No.” The usual assignment was six months shipboard time, which was closer to eight months planet time, for every six months assigned to a home planet. Tag always volunteered to return early to fleet duty. Mountains of paperwork--they all still called it paperwork; even though, actual paper hadn’t been used for centuries--and desk assignments bored him. A few days with grass under his feet and sky over his head and Tag was ready to return to the constant light and the smell of recycled air, carefully balanced for oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide.

“This assignment will require you to remain off world and out of contact with humans for most of your remaining lifespan. Is that something you’re willing to accept?”

“What is the assignment?” Tag asked, trying to keep his eyes fixed on the admiral and not let them rove around the room nervously.

“Return with our guests to their home solar system to study their culture and prepare for possible diplomatic relations.”

“I must tell you this today?” Tag asked, nearly interrupting the admiral.

“Yes.” That was Admiral Harper. “We’ve spent three months evaluating candidates, and you are the leading candidate. You have the appropriate educational background.”

“I’m sure there are thousands of qualified anthropologists, cultural geographers, and related scholars in the fleet,” Tag said, no longer caring that he was interrupting.

“The number is surprisingly small,” Admiral Harper continued, unperturbed by the interruption. “We were only able to identify seven people with the necessary expertise, and of those only three were in the necessary age bracket. That is why Professor Adams was not considered. The remaining two have family on New Terra, and it would be an undue hardship on them. For you, return to New Terra between 90 and 120 years hence should not prove to be as dislocating. You will still be young enough to reintegrate into society and perhaps start a family if that is desired.”

“And if I say no?”

“This mission is too vital for us to assign you against your wishes. I’m sure you are aware of the ultimate outcome of the Traveler series, and they were volunteers. Neither I nor any of the other admirals would order you to perform this mission, but we ask you, or perhaps it is more correct to say the peoples of the Alliance beseech you, to take this mission.”

Tag looked around the room. More than a dozen solemn faces were studying him, watching for a sign of acceptance. They were the people that Tag had only seen on news vids, the powerful, practically begging for his acceptance. It had to be dangerous, the chance of returning slim, but it also must be vital. These people didn’t talk to lieutenants about routine missions to study sunspots or sample asteroids. 

“I’ll do it,” Tag said, fingering his water glass.

“Excellent,” Admiral Harper said with a small smile that could be interpreted as condescension as if he’d known all along. “Professor Adams will accompany you to meet our visitors and brief you on our current knowledge of them. Once you enter the compound with our visitors, you will not be able to leave. We have prepared messages for your parents and shipboard comrades. Is there anyone else who should be notified?”

“No.”

“Very well. Admiral Parker will brief you on the specifics of the mission.”

Tag unrolled the small video screen in front of him and tried to focus on the facts and figures of the mission without success. The schematics of the flight flashed across the screen, a long and torturous journey with no hope of return for the Orosian crew that would be flying the vessel. Tag tried to catch the captain’s eye, but she was sanguinely studying the screen. Orosians had a shorter lifespan from the solar radiation beating down on their planet. Historically they’d often been chosen for suicide missions because even a short time disruption returned them to a generational void where their original contemporaries were long since dead and their current contemporaries were their grandchildren and great grandchildren. The captain, from the darkness of her burnt orange coloring, had to be approaching forty in a subspecies who rarely lived beyond fifty.

A  detailed projection map of the galaxy appeared on his screen with a distant star system flashing in red. A system to which humans had never sent unmanned probes, and that Tag wasn’t even sure was named.

“The points marked in yellow will be the location of each shift into folded space,” the admiral said. Folded space was the lay description for the extra dimension that allowed long distance, high speed space travel. The shorthand for a complex mathematical and perceptual challenge had stuck even among the experts. “At the purple dot, the Frontiersman will rendezvous with a vessel from our visitors’ home world. What is the projected time of this voyage, Captain?”

“One year for the people on board ship. Forty years Terran side, and that’s only for arrival at the rendezvous location. We will have enough provisions to wait for eighteen months,” the Orosian captain replied.

Admiral Parker cleared his throat and looked down at his screen. “Unfortunately we are unable to provide the Frontiersman with a fuel source for its return journey. It will be equipped with an ion scoop and a solar array for energy capture, which will provide sufficient energy to maintain the environmental controls in the crew module and allow for local exploration.”

“You’re sending the crew of the Frontiersman on a known suicide mission!” a civilian, whom Tag didn’t recognize, blurted out.

“Yes. We at fleet take our responsibilities to our crews and officers seriously. The bravery and sacrifice of the Frontiersman’s crew will always be remembered. This is a mission with the potential to impact the lives of millions both on our home planets but also on the home world of the Saptans. Saptan is the name the visitors give themselves.”

“Is it worth sending people to their death?” Tag turned to look at the man asking the question. He was bearded and dressed in black robes with a conspicuous gold cross on a heavy chain around his neck: the Archbishop of New Canterbury. Tag had studied the religions of the old world, and while few took the apocalyptic predictions of the Bible with any more seriousness than they read the Roman myths, a type of religion had prevailed against all scientific evidence to the contrary for a godlike figure. On the conservative world of Pastoral, a large percentage of the population participated in religious rites that traced their ancestry directly back to the religions of Old Earth. 

During the formation of the Alliance, an ethics council had been appointed. This was a supposedly neutral body of leaders from other fields to guide the government. It was traditional to appoint religious figures as well as average citizens representing all walks of life. Tag dredged his memory, and he thought the current council of six members contained the archbishop, a priest of the modern pantheon of gods that were popular in the Northern Hemisphere of New Terra and on the small colony of Nimbus III, a mother, a schoolteacher, a historian, a farmer, and Tag thought the remaining slot was vacant. It had been offered to a member of the ruling council of Pastoral and had been declined without further comment.

“We consider it a worthy mission for such a heroic sacrifice,” the admiral said.

The archbishop shook his head and turned his attention to Tag. The folds of his sleeves brushed against the table as he pressed his hands together in front of himself. “Lieutenant Tag, you are a member of what can only be described as a military organization with its ranks and blind dedication to following orders. I am uncomfortable that it is possible for you to consent to this mission. You have been conditioned to obey your superiors, and this room is full of your superiors.” The archbishop made a sweeping gesture with his arm.

Tag balled his hands into fists. “I may have been a boy on a backwater planet, but I am aware of my rights. I consent to this mission, and I’m fully aware of the risks. I may very well never return, and even if I do return more than a century will have passed. As far as family and friends are concerned, the minute any of us step on that spacecraft we are dead. What is death but an inability to contact your love ones--the absence of loved ones from your life and you from theirs. We will all be as absent as if we’d died. Death holds no fear in this situation.”

“Very well,” the archbishop said. “You and your shipmates' loss will be mourned even if you insist on believing to the contrary, but it’s not my place to prevent it, nor do I have the power to prevent it.”

“Wouldn’t you take the chance to see what you’d studied, what you dream of, even if it meant your death? Haven’t the religious frequently done the same?”

“I had hoped we had evolved beyond the point of sacrifice.”

“Civilizations will always require sacrifice.”

“Gentlemen,” Professor Adams said. “This is not an academic conference. We have a short time to familiarize Lieutenant Tag with his mission. The Frontiersman is due to leave orbit in less than 72 hours, and while I’m not a technician I believe the correct alignment of our sun and the two moons will not be repeated for an additional 48 days if we miss our mission window.”

“That is correct,” Admiral Stockton said.

The briefing continued, mostly vague promises about the future benefits to humankind and the incredible scientific achievement of completing such a voyage. Little was said of the Saptans. That had been what the admiral had called the aliens? They were in captivity or what was more diplomatically referred to as protective quarantine less than one hundred kilometers away. Had none of these people seen them? The technical and mechanical aspects of the voyage were not Tag’s field. He dealt with cultures, civilizations, peoples. How would he communicate with them? Could they share the same atmosphere? Perhaps they were the giant slugs of the ancient horror movies and that was why little was said of them?

“Lieutenant Tag,” Admiral Harper said sharply, "Professor Adams will accompany you to meet the Saptans. Captain Fath will proceed to the launch area to prepare her ship. Good luck and godspeed.”

Tag didn’t have time to contemplate the old-fashioned oddness of the admiral’s final words as he and his former university tutor were hustled from the building between four MPs carrying what appeared to be loaded laser rifles, not the low powered electrical impulse interference rifles of law enforcement. 

At the end of the corridor, a formerly hidden door panel slid open when an MP touched a decorative molding, revealing a long flight of utility stairs. Tag was hustled down flight after flight of stairs, his boots clanging on the iron treads, the metallic ring reverberating on the steel and concrete structure. Finally there were no more stairs, and Tag was pushed unceremoniously into an underground parking deck. It wasn’t the public level full of the scooters and little tri-cars that buzzed through the narrow streets but a utility level with the purple and yellow striped vehicles of city services and police and the large multi-wheeled caterpillarcars of the public transport line.

“This way,” an MP said, his hand on Tag’s back. Maybe it was supposed to be a gesture of reassurance, but it felt more like restraint. Tag found himself being folded into the back of a security vehicle, trapped between the plexiglass panels and the sharp creases on the fatigues of the MPs. “Watch your head, sir.”

Tag expected Adams to climb in next to him, and Tag automatically slid over to make room, but instead of the professor, a security officer, his rifle cradled in his lap, sat down and the door started to close.

“Wait!” Tag cried. “I thought the professor was going to brief me.”

“Tag, my friend. The professor smiled sadly. “I’m supposed to tell you I’ll meet you there, but that is a lie.”

The door slid shut. Tag could see the professor surge forward, his lips still moving, but no sound came through the doors. Tag’s hand moved toward the door, but there were no interior controls, only smooth plastic and metal.

“Lieutenant, don’t do anything foolish,” the MP said in a gravelly voice.

“What is going on?” Tag forced his voice to a calmness he didn’t feel. After all, he had received military training when he joined the fleet.

“My orders are to deliver you to the facility undamaged. Please sit back and fasten your harness.”

“No, let me go!” Tag had no experience with MPs. He’d never done anything that was vaguely against the law, not even violating the curfew and drinking policy in school. At every new post, he was ribbed for being a straight arrow until they gave up on ever changing him and left him alone. Tag tried to scramble across the seat; the man would have to have a door controller. The vehicle was already moving; Tag only had seconds left to escape.

Tag felt a sharp prick on his thigh through his uniform pants and heard the MP saying something, but Tag couldn’t process it. His head dropped to his chest, and his body relaxed, sleep overtaking his consciousness.