Vyyda Book 1: The Haver Problem

Vyyda

Book 1

The Haver Problem

By

Kevin Bliss

© 2013 by Kevin Bliss

All Rights Reserved

Cover Design by Paul Ludenia

www.imagineimages.com

With Loving Thanks To:

EMJB, JB/(
JB
), CD, MR/BR, ER, SG/KG, NV, DDS, PL, VS

“Same as it ever was.”

--“Once in a Lifetime”

Talking Heads

“In for a penny…or get off the pot.”

--Stamen Goodthistle (1942-1967)

On the Meaning of Vyyda

Vyyda
[ˈ
vī-duh
] noun:  1. A life well-lived.  2. A worthwhile existence.  3. Any life experience providing genuine fulfillment.

Vyyda meant nothing at all to Earthers.  Highly unlikely any Earther had ever heard the word.  Understandable.  They were too deeply ensconced in the pure and balanced existence the home planet offered since humanity had been saved from itself.  The struggle was over.  Nearly all worked well and mankind had struck a sustainable relationship with its natural habitat.

 
              Mass migration had really done the trick.

 
              Such a concept as Vyyda would have been a redundancy.  Harmony now reigned on planet Earth.

 
              Yet, as Vyyda did not mean anything to Earthers, the term held deep significance for those humans who twisted and toiled in an ever-growing collection of settlements far removed from man's planet of origin.  Men, women and children widely scattered throughout the reaches of deep space made such a concept as Vyyda necessary.

             
In fact, it was so important for these people to have something to which they could cling that Vyyda became part of the very limited lexicon of absolutely common words, shared across the expansive territory beyond the yoke of Earth’s rule, Uncontrolled Space (U-Space, for short).

             
[Note:  The term, “uncontrolled”, a misnomer, suggests that Earth could not keep U-Space settlements in line.  In truth, they could harangue, harass, attack, abuse, beat, bully and decimate most settled regions of U-Space with impunity.  The veil surrounding Controlled Space was designed to keep people of the uncontrolled
region out at all costs, ever since mass migration from the home planet began in the 2150’s]

             
Despite mixed tongues and widely varied cultures, nearly everyone in U-Space agreed that Vyyda meant
a life well-led
. (One unusual exception came out of a settlement owned and operated by the Rype Systems Company whose meaning of the very same word had to do with a particular sort of chronic digestive disorder.) 

             
Vyyda resonated with the crafty and resourceful residents of the planetary settlement known as Salgine, as well as with mining veterans from Lanefeld (rough around the edges and rock-solid brawlers).  Mercurial cargo “joks” (jawboned thumbheads though they were) knew of Vyyda, as did “culturally insulated” laborers from places like Lydacole and Pescrea-66Z (decked out daily in sickly, yellow “cogger” uniforms).  They all yearned for it as much as anyone else in U-Space.

             
It was the power of the
concept
of Vyyda that served as defense against the dreary outlook faced by hordes of U-Spacers for generations.  Interpreted in a thousand subtly different ways, a life well-led gave hope to men and women imprisoned in marginal existences.

Vyyda could be a wish, a greeting, an encouragement or reminder, passed from one person to another in conversation.  For some, Vyyda was as simple as the financial wherewithal to indulge themselves in creature comforts.  Others found a life well-lived to be the improvement of the lot their children faced.  Still others would claim Vyyda in the opportunity to move freely between settlements to find the most promising opportunities available.

Unfortunately, there were many souls with no answer for what Vyyda meant to them.  Such a void could lead to aimlessness or even reckless behavior (an all too common occurrence throughout U-Space).  Then there were those who hadn’t drawn a bead on Vyyda, but weren’t giving up hope – individuals not unlike a single, seemingly insignificant young man who privately envied those fortunate enough to live their own Vyyda.  Bearing the somewhat unusual name Dorsey Jefferson, he hoped that
his
meaning of the word would eventually make itself known and that it would be something within reach.

1.

Dorsey Jefferson

5 March
2310.  The Sykes Academy

             
Dorsey Jefferson gazed at the large portrait of Earth.  Twenty meters square, it hung well above his reach, causing him to look steeply upward.  The depiction, as Earth would have been seen from space, was not so distant as to make it difficult to spot oceans and land masses, but nowhere near close enough to engender a feeling of intimacy or true familiarity.  There was no artist credited for the picture, yet Dorsey knew one thing:  it had been rendered from one of the better known photographs of Earth to be found on occasion in U-Space settlements; a poor, but cherished substitute for the genuine article.

             
Just turned thirty-two, Dorsey looked no more than twenty-five to most.  His dark-brown hair was long enough to require him to perpetually brush it back atop his head, which he did with an oft-repeated, deft gesture.  His smile had a disarming effect, as did his slightly crooked, aquiline nose.  He was imperfect and boyish, subversively endearing.

             
Yet Dorsey Jefferson also carried the vague stain of an outsider.  Standing before the image of Earth, he wore the dark purple, loose-fitting vestments of a faculty member of The Sykes Academy:  Professor Jefferson.  Purple designated him as belonging to the discipline of “contemporary languages”.  Just from underneath this official garb, however, peeked out bits of a bright red
molka warmer
(most commonly used by crew members on cargo vessels where maintaining body temperature was a constant challenge).  There were other, sleeker alternatives in insulating torso-garments, but they came at a price.  Dorsey, new enough to his position that he earned a relative pittance, remained content to use the red, somewhat worn top, as he had for years. (The main frustration was the need to perpetually shift his faculty vestment to keep the molka warmer hidden – a near impossibility.  It just didn’t look right.)

             
Upon his arrival at Sykes two years earlier, many of the other faculty members took to calling him, “the intrepid Dorsey Jefferson”; mockery of new professors a long-standing rite of passage at the school.

             
Despite the red molka warmer that suggested an undistinguished, even loutish, traveler of U-Space, Dorsey Jefferson proved himself over time.  Colleagues frequently tapped him for translations of uncommon tongues that tested his mettle.  He’d managed to find his place among the people of Sykes.

             
If only they’d known the real truth.

             
In the end, among the many things that might be said of Dorsey Jefferson, one was inescapable.  He was a fraud – or
blander
, as the cross-cultural U-Space term would have it.  Not of a malevolent stripe, preying on the weak and unguarded, naturally inclined toward brutal criminal behavior (which occurred frequently in the wide expanse of U-Space).  Nothing nearly so despicable.

             
Dorsey merely operated as a creative fabricator of his own personal history and qualifications as the need arose during his pursuit of more interesting and promising opportunities.

             
Interesting and promising opportunities in U-Space
always
ran on the scarce side.  And, since Dorsey Jefferson hid his blanding quite skillfully, there was no reason to stop.

V              V              V              V

              Dorsey had lost track of just how long he’d been staring at the picture of Earth in a way that could be seen as fawning.  If he’d been in the privacy of his rooms or anywhere else apart from the eyes of passersby, that would be one thing.  But as it happened, Dorsey was in a very public place.

He moved on, down the wide promenade connecting the landing/transport complex with the classrooms, residences, dining hall and other amenities of The Sykes Academy.  Reminders of his illegitimacy, that he was a blander, faced him from all angles: students who had
earned
their way to Sykes, a school with an impressive pedigree: one of only four “serious” institutions of higher learning in the mostly unruly reaches of U-Space.  Sykes had standing.

             
Constructed one hundred fifty years before Dorsey was born, the school was envisioned by its creators as something akin to a shrine celebrating the potential of man in U-Space.  Anything so near-sacred deserved physical grandeur, they reasoned.  How else would the students recognize its importance?  The result was the awe-inspiring promenade, thirty five meters wide with pale-blue polished stone floor intended to “soothe the eye” and “lift the soul”.  Works of art (of which the Earth painting was one) ran the length of both sides and the curved ceiling topped out at nearly one hundred meters above the walkway.  Moreover, the entire excavation was situated a full kilometer below the surface of the uneven rocky orb from which the school took its name.  No one had even bothered to discuss the layout of classrooms and other essentials until this grand, central feature was completed.

The promenade also radiated
the most exquisite synthetic
EarthLight. 
(A more proper name would have been sunlight; that's what it was intended to approximate.  EarthLight, however, had a more desirable ring to it.)  Dorsey had grown healthier in its glow. The supposed vitamins and other additives contained within the pleasing indirect illumination that bathed each of its recipients in a nurturing embrace, came from nowhere and everywhere all at once.

How did they do it? Dorsey, not at all technically adept, didn't know. He didn't particularly care.  In fact, he preferred not knowing how the phenomenal EarthLight was created, how displacement drives and gravity blankets made impo
ssible distances and conditions manageable, didn't understand how as many as ten million separate messages and comms (some as short as a few words, others hundreds of thousands of sentences long) could be conveyed from one edge of known space to another in a single particle at the atomic level with virtually no passage of time in the transfer of information. He liked not knowing because it made it seem that man – even in U-Space – had control of a sort of magic. Besides, words were his thing. Words, people and their behavior.  Ideas that couldn't be drawn in a diagram or translated into the language of engineers and scientists. Dorsey Jefferson may have been a
blander
, but he was also an unfulfilled, yet still slightly hopeful romantic.

“Hello, professor,” one student called out to Dorsey, appearing from one of the nooks built into the walls, staggered on either side of the promenade, just below the level of the art on display.  The nooks, accessed through narrow, craggy openings crafted to look like natural occurrences, provided space and seating for study, meditation and discussion among students and faculty alike.  It wasn't uncommon for a student or two to commandeer a nook, then hover near the entrance, visible to passersby, as if to say:  "We've got this one."  An invitation of sorts.

Dorsey turned toward the sound of the voice and immediately knew the student by sight, but couldn’t pull up a name.

“I’m taking your class next term,” the student enthused, obviously hoping it would receive some measure of approval.