Authors: Wade Andrew Butcher
Chapter 51
27 Days Remaining…
Ace entered the commons wearing the key necklace hidden from view in his coveralls. He did not want to draw attention with an outward public display of power. The tier-two personnel behind the window known as providers noticed his arrival, not fully realizing he was the new Keyholder. The human community was small, and the tier-two clones typically knew everyone, associating with both tiers other than their own. They did not need to see the markings, scarred and stained after testing early in their lives, to recognize the pilot when he arrived.
The first provider was younger and greeted Ace with a friendly demeanor, but the second was an older man who Ace knew held unspoken resentment for the privileged class. He had heard the older man say the testing was unfair. There were no second chances after the first and only classification by the Keepers.
“What brings you here, Ace? The rations are gone for today,” said the old provider. The old one looked the pilot over with a scowling disregard for the welfare of the new Keyholder.
“Can you pull something out from the back? I’ve been on the bridge for twenty hours straight,” implored Ace.
“Can’t do it. Against the rules,” said the provider defiantly.
“No flesh vines? Nothing? At least bring me some water,” replied Ace, frustrated that the Keepers had removed themselves as supervisors. They would have never allowed a pilot to go without food and water, especially since there would be at least one more turn of the key required before reaching Gamma.
“You’ll have to wait for another six hours until the next distribution. I’m not going to be the one to break the rules,” replied the provider.
Ace was about to crawl through the window into the back when he noticed both providers looking beyond him with an expression of concern. Breccan had entered. The old provider disappeared into the back while the young one stood there dumbfounded. When he returned, he held not one, but two, oversized portions of flesh vine with a gallon of water. Without a word, he set it on the counter for the two pilots and disappeared again into the back. The younger provider continued to stand there with a silly smile on his face.
“Hey kid, what’s your name again?” asked Breccan.
“Art, short for Arthur, Mr. Breccan”
“Hi there Art – would you do me a favor and get a large fruit juice blend for Ace here?”
“Right away Mr. Breccan,” the kid said before he went away back into the stockrooms.
Ace and Breccan sat together at one of the long bench and table sets affixed to the floor. The table stretched in parallel with the others from one end of the commons to the other, an area with the capacity to sit far more people than Ace had ever seen at one time, and far more than they would ever see on Neptune. They sat alone in the vacant space. The kid returned with the juice, which Ace drank quickly.
“I can see how tired you are,” Breccan said. He put his hand on the younger pilot’s shoulder as a display of encouragement then removed it again to finish eating the flesh vine. “You know I looked for these things in the conservatory? No luck. I really don’t like coming into the commons. But I did want to find you.”
By comparison, Ace was the larger person although a year younger. There was no age limit to be the Keyholder, and even Ace at age twenty had not been the youngest ever, but he was not regarded either by himself or anyone else to be completely worthy of the task before him. He petitioned Breccan to take the key back.
“Breccan, we need you back on the bridge,” he said simply.
“I know,” Breccan said quietly as if he had already come to that conclusion. “We need another ignition, don’t we?”
“You noticed,” Ace admitted.
“Why did you cut the engine this early?” Breccan queried.
”Slowing down too soon would have delayed arrival, and the Pilots seem to be in a hurry. I don’t know why.”
“Did you ask them?”
“Yes but they didn’t really give me a reason.”
Breccan sighed and said, “Well, if we did it once we can do it again. It should only take a few days more to slow us down. There is still time.”
Ace nodded, looked down at the last remaining vine, and timidly changed the subject. “Why did you leave the key? What happened?”
“I was sick of people trying to steal it from me.”
Ace nodded but was unsatisfied with the answer. He understood the menace of the people trying to take the key, which Breccan had always guarded overprotectively. One probing look in his direction when Breccan had the key had met swift and harsh treatment. He was the ideal Keyholder because most would never cross him, but there were always brave fools. Of course, the encroachers had no idea of its real purpose, just that it was an ornament that made someone king. Ace understood all of that very well as a tier-one clone also. He would not hesitate to protect the key, but he feared he could never match the fury unleashed by Breccan. A tier-two of the wrong mind might be able to take it from Ace, who was a large and formidable tier-one human but did not have the same unrivaled mean streak in him that Breccan did. Ace always believed Breccan actually enjoyed protecting it. It seemed the former Keyholder looked for opportunities to unleash violence for only the slightest reason.
“Since when did you mind people vying for the key?” Ace asked. He showed a confidence in his question, feeling good that Breccan seemed to be showing concern for him, but he wanted to retract the question when Breccan sat up straight with an annoyed look on his face.
“Ace, I wasn’t tired of defending the key or worried about getting hurt myself. I was tired of hurting people,” Breccan gave the answer contradictory to Ace’s suspicions, then in a moment of weakness, he confessed, “I killed the last one that tried.”
Ace did not know whether to be relieved or afraid.
Breccan continued, “I mean, what a contradiction, huh? The pilot charged with bringing everyone to safety is the same one that kills them for small offenses.”
“Trying to take the key is not a small offense,” Ace affirmed. “If it got lost, we would all be doomed.”
“No, no it’s not a small offense, but the last one that tried to take it was Rose,” Breccan added as he looked downward, unable to make eye contact with his fellow pilot, probably the closest person to a friend he had besides Nova.
“Rose? Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she just wanted to look at it, or maybe she wanted to steal to give it to someone else, or maybe I had imagined the whole thing in some paranoid dream before I woke up to cut her. I think part of me knew it was her, and I did it anyway. It was like I was two different people, the person I think I am, and some evil twin who is mad at everything in the universe. That other person knew it was Rose and wanted her dead just because she had shown the possibility of doing something wrong.”
Ace did not know what to say. If Breccan wanted to, he could kill him too. He felt compelled to say something consoling, something intelligent, but he could think of nothing. Unprovoked, Breccan continued talking.
“I think there is something wrong with me. I feel called to hurt just about anyone that angers me.” Breccan put his hands on his cheeks and looked down at his elbows resting on the table surface.
Ace had never seen Breccan show signs of vulnerability before, but what he had just heard was more than a slight failing. For the first time, Ace felt like Breccan was flawed. Whatever was happening, there was one thing that Ace knew. They needed the primary pilot back.
Ace reached under his collar and pulled the chain over his head. He put the key in front of Breccan.
Breccan looked at it, looked at Ace, and then he took the chain in his hand. When he put the chain around his neck, it seemed he had never truly wanted to let it go. His place was with the Pilots, succeed or fail.
“We both have to do this. The person holding this key doesn’t matter anymore. You know that, right?” Breccan said.
“Yeah, I know,” Ace replied as he stood up to leave his copilot sitting by himself in the commons.
Chapter 52
24 Days Remaining…
Breccan was among his old companions. There were four Pilots on the bridge including Ultima, the one he had known since the first day he had set eyes on the control room right after his testing. He regarded Ultima in much the same way the youngest pilot regarded him, with a simultaneous fear and admiration. Breccan had a hard time imagining that the Master Pilot was a friend. It was more like a commanding officer, but that was a hard concept to fathom as well. Most of the time, it was hard to even understand that the Keepers were intelligent. They were expressionless because they had no face, but their capacity for thought and reasoning far exceeded that of the humans, and their physical prowess did as well, except for ability to perform tasks on small objects.
“Young Breccan, our orientation has drifted,” came the words from the bridge translators, sounds that Breccan was accustomed to understanding as Ultima’s voice.
“Yes,” Breccan followed the command and rotated Neptune so the destination was in a straight line from the center, a necessary step before the next thrust. Breccan kept his reply as terse as possible. Keeping communications brief with the Pilots was a habit he acquired over time. Any sense of humor was lost on them and on the rare occasions when Breccan was in a mood for lighthearted comments, he was hesitant to engage the dodecapi in that manner. It was a lonely place on the bridge despite Orr and the other apprentice, who also provided little conversation while hard at work.
There was one topic that he could not avoid, so he had to ask, “Ultima, did you know a dodecapus almost killed me twelve days ago?”
The word
Keeper
was not something understood by the voice recognition. It only reacted to the sound of the word used by the original humans on Neptune.
“No. Why were you targeted?’
“I’m not sure. I was in the testing room. I was almost in a fight and we were taken away, but they haven’t been back since.”
“That would have been a terrible mistake, pilot Breccan. I will have a guard put on you again. You and Ace must survive until the next engine thrust is needed. I see you are holding the key again.”
Surviving until the next thrust
seemed like a scary qualification to Breccan. He certainly wanted to survive longer than that. Partially with that end in mind, but mainly because he was curious, he asked the next question, “What happens after we land?”
There was no answer. A moment passed followed by a few seconds. The seconds turned into a minute, and Breccan asked again, “Master Pilot Ultima, what will happen after we land? Will we still work together?”
“We have more important things to worry about now,” was the answer. It was one of the few times, if any, Breccan could remember Ultima not directly responding to a question. He was very hesitant to press for an answer, but couldn’t help himself.
“Yes, we have important things to do before the landing, but this is important to me too. I would like to keep working together. There will be many hardships on Gamma as well,” Breccan exaggerated his desire to continue working with them a little bit, but it was true. Despite the strange relationship, there were aspects he enjoyed about Ultima more than the company of most of the fellow people on Neptune, including the two pilots situated just twenty feet away from him by the hologram.
“I would like that too, pilot Breccan, but we don’t have a good way of planning for that now. Let’s get there first.” Ultima confessed in what might have seemed like a sentimental response, but Breccan couldn’t detect an emotion in the translated voice.
Ultima had a point. They did need to get there first. Breccan decided not to press the matter any further. If nothing else, he had already learned that Ultima might actually genuinely like him, something he had never really known after all those years. With that in mind, Breccan extended the conversation.
“Ultima, may I tell you a story?”
“Proceed, Keyholder.”
Sitting at his station, Breccan began to recollect events from long ago in an effort to tactfully suggest that a guard might not be the best idea.
“The first time I saw one of you that I remember, I was five years old, I think. It was in the same section of the ship where I live now and I was with my foster mother. My little sister had just arrived to be placed in her arms. I don’t remember exactly how old Nova was, but I could tell she was different. Her eyes were so bright that they almost glowed. When you looked at them, you almost felt like the infant could see right through you, knowing your every thought. It turns out that’s not far from the truth today, but anyway, I knew she was unusual.
“The person that delivered the baby was accompanied by a
dodecapus
. I was captivated at its sight, but I wasn’t scared. I had seen pictures and was told about the history of our cooperative relationship. Of course, those stories came from my mother, who was a tier-one clone.
“Later that day, the dodecapus had stayed in our section, monitoring the halls. One of my foster father’s students came by to see the new baby. It turns out that person was the son of Nova’s birth mother, and she was upset at not being given the chance to raise her young daughter, even though it wasn’t really hers. When this guy got close, he tried to snatch the little girl from my mother’s arms. He was too strong and too fast for my mother to stop. When he started running down the hall with the screaming baby, I was standing outside. They passed me. I saw immediately that the baby was Nova, and there was no hesitation in what I was going to do. I was going to run after them. There I was at age five, and I was going to run after someone four times my size to protect the foster sister I had just met.
“Before I could react, the dodecapus came to life. He had been stationary the entire day, looking almost like a plant with his arms draped around him, motionless on the hall floor. At the sight of the attempted kidnapping, all twelve of its legs were set in motion as it propelled itself. I hadn’t taken a step before it had caught up and captured its victim. It used what must have been nine of its arms to wrap up the guy with the baby inside. I only know it was nine because the dodecapus was standing there on three legs like a tripod. It held the man in place gently enough to leave the screaming baby unharmed, but firm enough so the intruder could neither advance further nor move.
“My father, who must have been recognized by the dodecapus, came to retrieve the baby. Nova was fine, just scared. After the grip was loosened and the baby was gone, the dodecapus squeezed across the man’s face and throat for a minute or two. He just left the body there in the hallway for all to see. I’ll never forget the image of the unconscious criminal lying on the floor with his arms spread out and one leg folded behind him.
“After that moment, I grew up imagining myself as one of your kind. I
wanted
to be like the Keepers, the dodecapi. After the testing, which occurred for me early about a year later, I was excited and proud. Twelve days ago, my point of view changed. The one called Andre and I were taken to what looked like a shower room, but I soon realized it was a slaughterhouse. I thought they might kill me and Nova too since she followed me, but we ran away. I’m not sure how we escaped.
“As we were running, I realized I had become like the dodecapi. I was capable of cruelty. I was feared, just like the dodecapi. I asked myself, was that really what I wanted to be like? I wasn’t certain, but I do know something for sure. I don’t need a guard to shield me from the people, unless five of them all decided at the same time they wanted to attack me senselessly in the middle of the landing sequence. Instead, I need a dodecapus to shield me from other rogue dodecapi. And if that is the case, how do I trust the guard? I don’t know any of them and even if I did, I can’t tell them apart. So maybe I’m better off without.”
Ultima waited for the silence and simply responded, “You are not required to have a guard, but I think the key will stay here.”
That was all he said.
When Breccan finished his shift, he left the key in its slot once more for the final engine firing. He and the Pilots both knew there would be somebody on the bridge at all times from that point forward. The need for a Keyholder had vanished. The position was obsolete.