Brave New World Ch. 05

The dropship was... ugly, Roy decided, watching the screen that was mounted onto the bulkhead next to the boarding bay. The walls of the bay were a bright, pristine white. Tami and Kyo were clad in the same gray protective suit that he was wearing. The clothing felt strangely restrictive on his skin after all this time.

The screen showed the dropship as it floated in space next to the hab. It looked like a enormous shipping container, painted a dull brownish red, sitting on top of a chunky black delta wing. It had no windows. The harsh contrast of sunlight in vacuum did very little to improve its looks. An articulated, segmented tube was locked to the top of it, held in place by segmented hydraulic members. It moved slightly as the hab-grown produce moved through it, into what Roy assumed what the cargo hold. He watched a second tube, much thinner than the first, snake out from the hab and lock onto a circular hatch near the front of the ship. It connected, and a few moments later the indicator light next to the bay doors switched from red to green.

"Pressure okay," Kyo said to Jaru who stood next to her. "Life support?"

Jaru consulted a set of read-outs on a panel set into the wall.

"LS checks okay," he said. His manner was business-like and professional, but the sound of his voice clearly betrayed his feelings.

"I'll be fine, love," Kyo said to him. She pushed a button and the boarding bay doors slid open.

"We'll look after each other, Jaru," Tami said. "Don't worry."

"How can I not worry?" Jaru sighed. "I'd give anything to go with you."

Kyo put her arms around him and hugged him. "We'll be back before you know it."

"Do you two need a minute?" Roy asked.

Kyo smiled sadly. "Thanks, Roy, but we already said our goodbyes last night. We're fine."

Tami also turned to Jaru and hugged him. She said nothing, but her face spoke volumes. Jaru smiled sadly.

"Hey," Kyo said. "Cheer up, you gorgeous hunk. Just think of the homecoming party you and I are going to have."

Jaru chuckled. "I like the way your mind works, love."

Tami nodded. "Yeah, right. If it weren't for the gutter, her mind would be homeless."

Kyo smiled. "Guilty as charged." She grabbed Jaru and gave him a long, intense kiss. "Time to go, lover," she said softly. Jaru released her, and when she turned around, Roy saw that her eyes were moist.

"Mind the zero-gee, guys," Jaru said, as Kyo stepped through the bay doors and into the boarding tunnel.

Tami took Roy's hand. "I guess this is it, then," she said in a small voice.

Jaru nodded. "Better get going," he said.

Roy held out his hand to him. "Thanks," he said.

Jaru's grip was firm. He smiled and nodded, but said nothing.

"Come," Tami said.

Roy nodded. As he followed her into the tunnel, the doors closed behind them. The air in the tunnel smelled faintly of ozone and plastic. The gravity decreased with each step they took, and by the time they reached the flexible tube at the end of the tunnel they were floating. Holding on to the rungs that were set in the walls of the tube, he dragged himself after Tami and Kyo. His stomach tried to do back-flips in the absence of gravity, and his balls felt tight.

They followed the curve of the tube, pulling themselves forward hand over hand. The harsh sunlight outside filtered through the flexible walls to fill the interior with a cool, diffused glow. Before long they came to the end of the tube. Kyo dropped gracefully through the hatch into the ship, Tami and Roy following her a little more clumsily.

The cabin was small, almost cramped. Three large screens showed a view of the outside, creating the illusion of windows. Two narrow contoured couches were mounted in the center of the cabin, filling it almost entirely. There was nothing else.

"Now you see why we have to travel light," Kyo said. "Produce dropships have emergency accommodation only, and this is it. We'll have to share couches as it is." She looked at Roy, a twinkle in her eyes.

"Take a number, Ki," Tami said, smiling. "I'm climbing in with Roy." Her smile was a little brittle, Roy noticed.

Kyo chuckled. "Both the pleasures and problems of zero-gee sex are greatly overrated."

"That quote sounds familiar," Roy said. "Where have I heard it before?"

Kyo shrugged. "I don't know, Roy. It's been around for ages."

Tami nodded. "It would have to be," she said dryly.

Kyo pulled herself over to one of the couches. "Better strap yourself in," she said. "We should be launching soon." As she maneuvered herself into the couch and reached for a bundle of straps attached to its side, a loud *CLANG!!* rang through the ship. Roy looked up.

"That's the loading tube clamps disengaging," Kyo said.

Roy took Tami's hand and pulled them over to the other couch. Holding each other close, they managed to get the straps around them in a way that was almost comfortable. Tami's suit made creaking sounds as it rubbed against his. With his arm around her, her head on his shoulder, they settled in. The couch was not quite wide enough.

"Are we likely to have any shocks or violent acceleration?" Roy asked.

Kyo shook her head. "No. It should be a fairly smooth ride. If this had been an unmanned flight the gees would have been quite a bit higher, but with us here everything should stay more or less within comfortable limits."

"Words like 'should' and 'more or less' don't exactly fill me with a lot of confidence, Ki," Tami said.

Kyo smiled. "Don't worry, Tams. I promise you we'll be fine."

The lights dimmed briefly, and a slightly nauseating wave of motion seemed to sweep through the tiny cabin.

"Here we go, it looks like," Roy muttered.

Kyo nodded. "Yes, we're on our way down."

When Roy glanced at the forward screen he saw that the dropship had rotated around its axis. Earth now appeared to float overhead.

"We're going for re-entry upside down?" he asked incredulously.

"No." Kyo said, "We're just decelerating upside down. You see, as we shed our velocity, the gravity planer will... Well, it's a little complicated. Let' s just say there are reasons for it, but we'll turn right side up well before we hit the upper layers of the atmosphere."

"When this is all over, I'm going to catch up on physics and engineering," Roy said.

Kyo gave him a long and slightly amused look. "Yes, I know," was all she said.

As the dirty, brown-gray smudgy globe grew larger and larger on the screens, Roy once again wondered sadly what had happened to the beautiful blue and white planet he remembered. Then he felt Tami's fingers dig into his arm. When he looked at her, he saw that she had her eyes screwed shut. She was terrified.

"Tami?"

She didn't answer. Instead she gripped him even tighter. All he could do was put his arm around her and hold her as well as he could while strapped into the cramped contour couch with her.

Before long the ship turned again, and earth drifted slowly out of the forward screen. A few minutes later a strange, low-pitch sound, something halfway between a rumble and a sigh, echoed through the ship. He felt the first ghostly push of deceleration as it pressed them down gently into the padding of the contour couch.

"We've entered the atmosphere," Kyo said. "We should be down in a few minutes."

"That soon?" Roy asked. "I thought we'd be spending a lot more time slowing down."

"No, Roy. You're thinking of aerobraking, right? You know, where you discard speed by atmospheric friction. That's not what we're doing. The gravity planer is storing our kinetic energy, or at least most of it. There is some loss due to the friction with the atmosphere, but we're not nearly losing as much energy as we would without the 'planer." She pointed at the forward screen. "Look."

The image on the screen confirmed what she had said. The view of the ground below was much like what Roy remembered from flights on regular jetliners. They descended rapidly, the image of the ground coming closer as he watched. Gravity continued to increase, slowly but steadily.

"We're almost there, Tami," he whispered. She nodded, her head on his shoulder, but she didn't open her eyes.

"Why didn't you tell me that you were so scared of this?" he asked her, softly.

"Couldn't," she whispered.

"Why not?"

"You'd have made me stay behind."

"You're damn right I would have."

"See?" She tried to smile, but it didn't quite work.

"So how did you get up to the hab?"

"Freezer." Her hand dug into his shoulder with renewed strength.

"That's right," Kyo said, when Roy looked at her. "The regular transports up to the habs use suspended animation capsules to maximize transport capacity. No life support needed."

Roy sighed. "Sorry, Tami. I wish I'd known," he said softly.

They continued to descend, and soon the dropship banked over what looked to be a complex of buildings. As they descended further, Roy saw that he was looking not at a complex of separate buildings, but at one enormous structure that consisted of several tunnel-like components. Its layout clearly betrayed its military origins, or so it seemed to him. The long central tunnel was joined by half a dozen smaller tunnels on each side, creating a layout not unlike the symbol he remembered seeing on the gear levers of antique vehicles. The domed roof of each tunnel faintly reflected the murky sunlight.

The dropship banked again, until it was headed for the far end of the central tunnel where a black, rectangular outline suddenly appeared on the roof. As he watched, one side of the outline continued to widen, and he realized that what he saw was an enormous hatch being opened. The dropship headed right for it, unerringly, and as they got closer their velocity seemed to increase. Although Roy knew that it was merely an illusion caused by the increasing proximity of their target, his more primitive instincts screamed at him, telling him to brace for the imminent and unavoidable impact. Within seconds the dropship sank through the open hatch in a perfect, vertical descent, and touched down with a soft shock and a *CLANG!* that reverberated through the ship.

"Dirtside," Kyo said softly. She sighed. "Never thought I'd see this place again."

* * *

"Sorry to keep you waiting," the young man said as he led them through the corridor. He hadn't introduced himself. "They sprung this rescheduling on us at the last moment. Something about a crashed dropship, and Central sort of forgot to let us know. Typical C4 crap, if you ask me. When the commander told us that this can was a live one with three coming down, we got here as soon as we could." He shrugged. "Best we could do. We're a little understaffed these days."

"No problem," Kyo said.

The air smelled funny, with undertones of rust, chemicals, grease, cooked vegetables and humanity all competing for attention in the background. The steel walls of the corridor were covered in countless layers of drab gray paint. Somehow they managed to look old, tired and ready to give up.

A door in the wall slid open as they approached. When they stepped through it, Roy involuntarily stopped.

The space behind the door was enormous. They had entered the main tunnel through one of its side walls. The domed roof, at least a hundred feet or so overhead, was pleasantly lit with the type of sourceless, directionless light he'd seen in the hab, and the beams that supported the upper structure were covered with dark green vines that grew from planters built into their bases. The opposite side wall looked to be at least half a mile away, and to their left and right the length of the tunnel ran on farther than the eye could see. Trees and shrubs lined the center of the tunnel and its walls, giving it the appearance of a broad street. Small benches and tables sat under and between the trees, interspersed with stalls and booths.

In the opposite side wall of the tunnel, diagonally across from where they stood, Roy saw the large domed arch of a connecting side tunnel, almost as high as the main one in which they stood. A large red number 3 was painted on the wall above the arch. The overall impression was somewhat between that of a wide city street, an airplane hangar and a greenhouse, with industrial and military accents mixed in for good measure.

What he was not really prepared for was the people. They sat or stood around the center line of the tunnel, or walked in either direction, as far as his eye could reach. He estimated there were at least a thousand men, women and the occasional child. Most of them wore the same one-piece gray coverall type of suit that he was wearing, although there was a sprinkling of nudists among the crowd. A small, flat, open cart whizzed past on a pair of gleaming rails, about half full with passengers. After having been with only a handful of people in the hab since he came out of coldsleep, Roy gazed at the crowd. It took some getting used to.

"A little busier than what you've seen lately, huh?" Tami said softly. Roy only nodded.

"It used to be a lot busier at first," Kyo said. Roy raised his eyebrows at her, but she didn't say anything more.

They turned left and walked about a hundred yards until they came to another door in the side wall of the tunnel, smaller than the one through which they had entered. It was open, and behind it was a small and rather cluttered office. They halted at the entrance.

"Yes?" a voice from inside asked.

"Here are the people from the transport, commander," their guide said.

The man sitting behind the desk looked... not old, but worn. Somehow his wispy gray hair and lined face looked out of place on him. He looked up and smiled.

"Kyo," he said. "Glad to see you made it down safely. Come in, all of you." He handed some papers to the young men who had led them into the office. "Thanks. If you can take care of these for me?" He stood up, walked around the desk and caught Kyo in a big hug. "It's so good to see you in the flesh again. The vidcom link doesn't do you justice."

Kyo smiled. "You're looking well, Burt."

The old man smiled sadly. "And you're a terrible liar, Kyo. I know what I look like. I could be a natural in my eighties, but I'm not. I've had the ion flush treatments for the past fifty years, but they no longer keep me young. All that remains to be seen is what will get me first: the radiation or the toxins. I just hope it will happen before I show my true age." He smiled grimly. "But not just yet. Aren't you going to introduce me to your friends?"

"I'm sorry, Burt. Of course. Meet Tami and Roy. He's the one I told you about."

When Burt looked at him, Roy had the uncomfortable feeling that the man dissected him with his eyes, analyzed him within seconds, classified the results and filed them away into the computer vaults of his mind. Burt held his gaze for a long moment, then nodded once, as if he had considered a problem, arrived at a conclusion, and made a decision.

"Welcome, Lieutenant Beaumont. I understand that no-one here is aware of your status. Kyo suggested we keep it that way for now, and I agree with her."

"The fact that I'm an old fossil, you mean?" Roy said, his attempt to make light of it not quite panning out.

Burt chuckled. "Oh, I don't know I'd put it exactly that way. But yes, that is more or less what I was thinking of."

Roy nodded. "I can live with that."

Burt looked at Tami for a few long moments, then back at Roy. "You're in good hands, Roy," he said.

Tami raised her eyebrows at him.

"You mean to tell me you're not here to look after him, then, dear?" Burt asked gently.

Tami blushed, then smiled. "Now I'm the one who would not have put it exactly that way, Burt," she said.

"But I would," Burt said, a soft smile hovering around the corners of his mouth. "Why be circumspect about it? I'm sure he knows. And if he doesn't, he should."

"Be nice," Kyo told him. "If you weren't so frail I'd be punching you right now."

"Frail?" Burt responded. He looked her up and down quite suggestively, his leering obviously deliberate. "Why don't you come look me up tonight, Kyo, and I'll show you how frail I am."

Kyo laughed. "At least you would die happily, old friend," she said.

Burt chuckled again, then looked at Roy and Tami. "As you will have gathered by now, I'm in charge of this madhouse." He smiled. "At least nominally, that is. Kyo has briefed me on your situation. I can help you to some extent. Transport and an extra pair of hands is no problem. But weapons are a more delicate matter, I'm afraid. I simply cannot authorize an armed expedition without involving C4. And they're sure to veto it."

"Burt, we'll need... well, something, at least," Kyo said. "I told you, the whole purpose of us being here and going out is to find whoever tried to kill Roy and make him stop. We can't go in there totally defenseless. But if you can't give us anything to do the job with..."

Burt shook his head. "I simply cannot authorize it."

Kyo looked thoughtful. "Are you saying that you can't give us any weapons at all?"

Burt gave her a long, hard look. Kyo returned it, and something seemed to pass between them.

"Suppose we were to do something drastic without your authorization?" she asked.

"In that case would have to take disciplinary action against you as soon as I learned about it," Burt said.

"What if you never learned about it?" Roy asked.

Burt just shrugged. He said nothing, but the look in his eyes spoke volumes.

"Okay. Maybe we should leave it at that," Kyo said.

"That would probably be best," Burt replied with a deadpan face.

"I like this man," Tami said to no-one in particular.

Burt smiled. "You're welcome here any time, Tami." He looked at her curiously. "Which shelter are you from, originally? Or were you born up in the hab?"

She shook her head. "No, I'm from eighteen."

"Ah, commander Jen's old place. I hear he's retired. Not sure who's in charge there now. How long have you been up?"

"Just over ten years. I'd almost forgotten what it was like."

"I take it you'll all be going back up when this is over?" Burt asked.

Kyo nodded. "Definitely. Life up there is slow and a little hum-drum, but I like it that way."

"And you, Roy?"

Roy shrugged. "So far I haven't seen much down here. I don't really know what I'll do in the long run. But I've enjoyed living at the hab." He smiled ruefully. "I've got a lot of catching up to do, and the hab seems a pretty good place to do some of that."

Burt nodded. "I would imagine. But some time down here might do you some good, too."

"Probably, yes." Roy sighed. "Although I'm feeling like a stranger in a strange land right now."

"Well, you've got some pretty good guides here, Roy," Burt said, looking at Kyo and Tami. "And if there's anything you need, just say the word."

"Right now I think we need sleep more than anything, Burt," Tami said. "We're all a bit lagged. I don't even know what time it is here, but we left around midnight, hab time. Can you put us up for the night?"

Burt smiled sadly. "That'll be easy, Tami. Far too easy, in fact." He turned to Roy. "This shelter was originally designed for about 50,000 people. Right now we've got a population of less than a fifth of that. We're not doing well, Roy."

"Is it like that everywhere?" Roy asked.

Burt nodded. "Unfortunately, yes. Our numbers keep dropping. Sometimes I think..." He paused without finishing the sentence, then sighed. "Anyway. We're using only sections four and five for dorms these days, Kyo. You know where it is. The rest we've closed up to save on energy and life support. Use four, I think. There will be plenty of room." He looked glum.

"Thanks, Burt," Tami said. "I guess we'll see you tomorrow then."