Of Procul Preview - Chapter Two

3201

Venus

“Good morning Princess.”

The sun streamed through the immense stained glass window, and onto the equally immense quilted blanket covering the princess’s bed.

“Good morning, child.” She replied, airily.

She stood, and the servant approached her. His tiny hands undid the claps of her peignoir, and slid the covering off. The princess approached the window nude, and stared out over the domed capital of Venus. The cream minarets and arches of the city reflected the suns warm glow effortlessly, as the gilded screens atop the cities dome opened slowly.

“Pleasure to you, this morning.” The child’s voice was quiet, barely louder than the sounds of the princess’s feet as she glided towards her mirror, slender, and pale skinned. She wound a lock of her perfect white hair around her finger, and sighed.

“Would the Princess like to wear a darker shade today?” The youth opened a draw, and with difficulty pulled out a long robe, and offered it to the princess. She waved a hand approvingly, and the child begun to dress her, occasionally asking her to move an arm or a leg.

“Is the Logistician from Revere in the city?” The princess asked suddenly, as she fixed her hair with a collection of black beads. The boy did not reply. The Princess sighed again.

“Pleasure being to you, Princess.” The child begun, worryingly “But your father has expressed his wishes to the entire servitude, that the Revere Palace Logistician is not to see you again.”

The princes, now clothed, walked away from the mirror and back towards the window. She kneeled, as the servant attached her mantle, fastening the billowing epaulettes with special care. He walked to a counter, and picked up the royal pendant. It was entirely silver, a perfectly moulded star of innumerable points, attached to a minute thin silver chain of tiny links. The child clasped the pendent behind her neck, treating the ornament as tenderly as a new born.  

When she stood, the princess was even more beautiful than when she was nude. She was the very image of spiritual and bodily exquisiteness, the wishful thoughts of a benevolent god made reality.

“When did my father tell you this?” The princess turned back to the child, and her face took on an expression of sad disappointment. “I had quite longed for the Logistician’s return.”

The youth squirmed. “The morning, when I rose princess. My teacher told me not to tell you, but-” His voice faded away, and the princess smiled. 

“Child, it is no fault of yours. My father’s wishes are as important as mine after all. I will not tell your teacher what you have said, let us simply assume I never mentioned the Logistician.” She checked her mantle once more, and floated towards the door.

“Yes princess, pleasure to you. Thank you, princess.” The child said hurriedly, as he opened the door for her, bowing deeply as she moved past him into the corridor.

“I will see you this evening.” She said to him absentmindedly as she descended down the polished marble stairs. He muttered a respectful farewell, and shut the doors behind her.

As she finished the last step, a low hum begun to fill the corridor. A panel bearing the mural of a vortex moved aside, and a tall man stepped out. The princess did not respond to his appearance, as he bowed deeply and saluted as he stood up again.

“Pleasure to you this morning, princess.” She nodded curtly at him, as he fell in behind her down the corridor to the courtyard. The guard was dressed appropriately, the ceremonial curved club fastened to his hip swayed with his steps, but the small pistol clipped to his thigh did not. The buttons flowing down his breast jangled slightly as he walked, harmonising with the gentle swish of the princesses gown as she emerged into the courtyard.

Molten silver flowed hot from the top of an elegant fountain, and as it flowed downwards, it hugged the shapes and curves of a great hand pointed upwards. The princess deliberately moved around the heat of the fountain, passing a row of sharp dark bushes which followed the path out of the courtyard. She entered a lift adjacent to the path, and the guard followed her in.

“Where to princess?” He asked, his hand hovering over the tablet on his forearm.

“I would quite like to visit the libraries today. But first I would like to take a walk along the docks before my breakfast I think.” The guard frowned, and looked down at his tablet.

“Princess, your wish is mine, but why the docks?” He had obeyed the order, as the lift descended to the level of the palace where it joined the royal dockyard.

“I would like to see if the Logistician from Revere is docked.” She turned to the guardsman, whose apprehensive eyes flew away from hers as she sought eye contact with him. He stared nervously at the line where the wall of the lift joined the ceiling. “Princess” He said “I have had orders from my superior, your father has-”.

“No, sir.” The princess cut in sharply, as she continued to try and draw the man’s eye. “My father has merely advised me against meeting with the Logistician.” The lie came quick and easily for one so used to them. “We spoke yesterday over our supper. His advice has been received and I wish to continue to meet the dear Revere minister.

The guard squirmed. He was new, and his this was the first shift he’d drawn to guard the princess. She knew this well, but didn’t let on. He lowered his eyes to hers, and the warmness and sincerity that met him couldn’t not convince him. “As you wish then, princess. Pleasure to you.”

The lifts doors swung open, revealing the docks of the palace. It bottomed out onto the immeasurable airship the Venusian capital floated upon. The balloon was huge, larger than most meteoroids. It was not the first airship to float in the Venusian atmosphere, but it was undoubtedly the greatest. They were made of a material unlike any found in the Solsystem, and it was a miracle of engineering. It was the most advanced technological feat on Venus, and conveniently left out of the sermons and speeches about the dangers of technological advancement. A living fibrous sheet of bacteria and nanoparticles, engineered to respire and reduce the harsh atmosphere of Venus into breathable gases for the inhabitants of Venusian cities, while maintaining a low internal pressure to keep them floating. The balloon could also bud and yield mitosis, like a vast cells creating smaller airships for transport around Venus. These smaller daughter balloons could not last long without their parents, but were enough for most journeys.

As the princess began her walk along the wide gangway overlooking the docks themselves, she could see through the window beneath her several small airships coming and going. One that had just returned was fusing its balloon with the capitals, and masked men hurried to pull the raft they had been standing on back onto solid ground. The princess stopped at a lookout, and surveyed the docks. A majority of rafts were tiny vessels, mainly used for maintenance and repair work, but a few large ships were present. The princess smiled as she saw the curved spine of the Logisticians barge poke out from behind a battery craft.

“Princess, I must urge you to hurry” said the guard anxiously, “If my captain or any of my more zealous brothers see us, I would be in terrible trouble.” The princess turned, and without comment quickly made her way back to the lift.

“Of course sir. I would hate for you to become inconvenienced” she announced, as she stopped in front of the lift. “And likewise I assume you will not mention this?” He agreed submissively, resting his shoulder against a rack of dark red dockhand robes by the lift. He stood back to attention immediately however, as the lift pinged its arrival. Following the princess in, he directed the elevator to the palace hall. A minute later, the lift slower, and the doors slid open.

“Goodbye, loyal guardsman” the princess murmured, as she stepped out into the hall, and walked towards her family.

Of Procul Preview - Chapter One

3201

Mercury

“Wake up Fed.”

The voice wasn’t robotic, it had human emotion behind it. Like a voice you hear through an intranet channel with a poor connection. The figure which the voice originated from didn’t even look remotely robotic. The avatar was roughly human shape and size, with arms and legs in the right place and quantity. Only the upper torso gave the machine away, with burnished spherical shoulders. And while the head gave a very flattering impression of a man, it wasn’t quite perfect.

“Happy birthday.”  He spoke again, droll traces intoning false enthusiasm in the anniversary. The automaton was sitting with one leg crossed over the other in a thin metal chair near the window. The view was stunning, but the two inhabitants of the apartment were used to it by now. It overlooked the entire Caloris shaft, with the other side of the residential ring visible a kilometre across the curve. Squinting up, you could even make out the Capital Room and Caloris dockyards at the top of the vast cylinder.

“Thanks Parvus.” A different voice, unmistakably human this time. The accompanying man sat upwards in bed, and cracked his neck. He stood, and leaning to crick his back, he advanced towards the shower cubicle of the apartment. Warmth, steam and artificial scents filled the. The robot, Parvus, stood and moved into the kitchenette. Parvus has two hands, one humanoid, and the other multipurpose. Imagine a fine point paintbrush, but each hair is an independent appendage, capable of infinite movement.  While the human hand pulls a knife off a magnetic rack and begins slicing meats, the multipurpose adjusts itself into the shape of a shovel, and moves freshly cooked cottony rice into a small bowl.

“Is that my special double birthday breakfast I smell? Parv you shouldn’t have!” The human voice is at it again, full of the sincere enthusiasm that only a double birthday can bring. Only Mercurials celebrate double birthdays, because they’re the only planet in the Solystem which follows both the archaic Gregorian calendar and their local planetary calendar.

“You’re not one hundred mercyears every day.” Replies Parvus, as he coats the sliced meats in seasoned oils and complements the rice with small green shoots. “And besides, it’s not like I did anything for your twenty-third eyear.” The meal complete, the multipurpose wraps itself perfectly around the rim of the bowl and carries it to the small one man table, where chopsticks and rum await.

A sudden roar flows from the shower cubicle, as the drier activates. The man emerges from the shower, brazen and clean. Snatching underwear and donning them, the dresser automatically opens at his approach, offering a pair of fibres and jacket, which are hurriedly pulled on. Rubbing his hands, the 24 eyear old Mercurial sits and raises his chopsticks.

“Thi-th is delicoush” Is forced out between a huge bite of fatty meat, dripping with oil. A gulping noise. “Where did you get it? The Mavans manage to save some of their livestock from that virus?”

“No, I went further up.” The higher up you shopped on Mercury, the closer you got to the interplanetary flights, and hence the better produce. Everything grown or raised on Mercury tastes of metal. “I’ll give you a Verne if you can guess which planet.”

Eyebrows raised, Fed swallowed another mouthful of rice. “You went for the offworld proddie? Effe me Parv you didn’t need to spoil me that much.” The shock and gratitude was overcome fairly quickly, as he took a sip of the oily rum and dived back to his bowl.

“You haven’t guessed yet a planet yet, Fedlimid my friend.” Parvus crossed his arms, laid back, and enjoyed watching the gears turn in his friends head. It was a difficult question. There was livestock on the Solar Bases, and Earth and Mars farmed. Venus followed their bizarre religious veganism so they could be crossed off the list. Anything past Mars was too much of a trek, and it’s not like the Coalition would sell anyone else anything.

“Mars or Earth.” Fedlimid replied confidently. “They only keep avian meat on the Bases, at least Apex does. That’s the only station near us at the moment.” He leaned forward, and brandished a chopstick towards his robotic opposite. “And don’t think I’ve forgotten about the total alignment!” Pointing his other arm towards the screen on the wall facing the window, Fedlimid pushes his wrist forward and clenches a fist. The personal implant fitted just above the wrist flashes a tiny red LED, as Fedlimid announces clearly. “Planmap!”

The black screen spurts into life, and shimmers into a shape of a 2D map of the solar system viewed from above. Fedlimid leans forward and by relaxing his index finger slightly, causes a thin red laser to shoot out of his wrist implant. He drags the line along the nearly aligned planets, resembling a chain of different coloured beads. It wasn't perfect, that would be impossible. The planets didn't occupy the same plane, but were undeniably closer to each other than they had been for millennia. The laser point settled comfortably on Mars.

“Given how up in the office we only order the inferior proddie from Earth when it’s closer to us than Mars, I’m going to say its Martian meat. And I’ll take that Verne now please, I fancy I’ll buy myself some chew tobacco as a reward.” Dropping his chopstick into the now empty bowl, he scratched his chin triumphantly.

Parvus also leaned forward, and rested his elbows on the table. In his human hand, the twirled and twisted the thick metal coin between his fingers. He flipped it into his multipurpose, which swallowed the Verne whole. “Your logic is irrefutable as usual Fed. But I’m afraid I went with the more classical option.” The receipt was nudged across the table into Fed’s waiting grasp, as Parvus stood and walked towards the door. Fedlimid pulled the docket up to his eyes, and squinted. It was Earthen alright, it was actually signed in Old English. The Latin letters were rare enough outside of Mercury and Earth itself, so Fed recognised them instantly. And the E.R.C.O symbol was faded, but still apparent behind the writing.

“Thirty Vernes!” Fedlimid suddenly exclaimed as his eyes reached the bottom of the paper. “Christ Parv where did you pull that from? Kept quiet about that last emonth when we needed the lights rewiring.” Fedlimid also stood, and followed Parvus to the door, picking up his binder off the bedside cabinet. Checking to make sure nothing was missing, he resealed the binder and tucked it under his arm.

“Come on boyo, you’ll be late. And as I said.” Replied Parvus, turning to open the door out to the hall. “You’re not 100 every day.” The robot chuckled smugly and left the apartment. Fedlimid cursed quietly as he forced his way into his slip-ons, and yanking the heel of one over his foot also left the room, shutting the door behind him with a flick of his wrist. Patting the jacket, he confirmed the presence of his tablet, wallet, and a small bag of Vernes and Heins. Parvus was waiting patiently in the lift now, extending and retracting his multipurpose impatiently. Fedlimid jumped in just as the robot pinged the lift to close.

“In a hurry?” Fed asked, as he zipped up his jacket. “Didn’t realise AI liaisons was in such a hubbub on Fritags.”

“Fridays. And no hurry.” Parvus replied lightly. “Although we are a lot busier than usual. The alignment’s dragging a lot of satellites into our orbit, and Capitol’s eager to make good first impressions.”

As the lift hummed, Fedlimid turned curiously. “Venusian satellites? What the hell are isolated AIs doing orbiting Venus? Didn’t they shoot that weird Buddha statue down recently?”

“No, no. It’s mainly bodies from Earth which we’re picking up. I didn’t really imply the actual scale of these orbits.” Parvus pulled his tablet out from its sheath on his torso, the screen already showing the picture he offered Fedlimid. “Maybe I didn’t express the scale, we’re talking extremely wide ellipses. Like our Perigee station, but wider.”

As Parvus descended into technobabble, his beady black eyes stopping their incessant darting around as he described a particularly interesting Neuvobrazza satellite consciousness, Fedlimid phased out. He was used to ignoring Parv’s bouts of passion about his job, and took the opportunity to think about his birthday. He and Saruit had been planning it all week. Saruit was Fedlimid’s best human friend who worked in Apollodorus, roughly three hours away by magtrain. He’d be riding over for the big celebration, as the nightlife in Caloris was the best in Mercury. They’d not decided on a venue yet, but Fed’s work mate Conair knew the entire shop a lot better than the both of them and Parvus combined, so he’d find something for them to do. They’d also need to visit Harrier for their drugs and drink. Harrier was normally out of Fed’s price range, for but his birthday he thought he’d splash out. His father would probably transfer some funds for the occasion, if he sat through an intranet call with him from Mava. Fedlimid’s mother lived on Titan so he doubted she would be making an appearance, aside from a longwave message wishing him the best from her and her wife.

The powerful shunt of the elevator hitting the roof of the shaft in the managerial district woke both Fedlimid and Parvus from their respective stupors. The two waved goodbye to one another, then quickly turned back to confirm a meeting place for this evening. Agreeing on outside Harriers, a bit later than Parvus would have liked so Fedlimid could talk to his father. Parvus patted his human friend on the shoulder, wished him a happy birthday one more time, before waving goodbye. Fed stood outside the lift for a moment thinking. Then he walked down the corridor to his office. 

Of Procul Preview - Prologue

3201

The Procul Station

It began with a very low hum.

The room which the hum filled was tiny, a glorified cupboard. Even in zero-g, where every wall was a workspace, the room was small. The ceiling was punctured by a perfectly circular window, from which the minute glow of one distant star signified the station was facing towards Sol. A single figure floated from wall to wall, adjusting machinery, and making rapid calculations on her forearm mounted tablet. Sweat dripped from her forehead and floated off towards the centre of the room.

Pushing off, the woman glided from one corner to its opposite a few metres away. Her rate of movement was steadily increasing. More buttons were pressed. More wires plugged or unplugged. Dials and screens tapped to make sure they were working. Numbers flew from a hundred screens, through the brain of the young scientist, out through her fingers and onto the tablet. More calculations were made. She darted to another wall, then another. Eyes never leaving the numbers, fingers never leaving the tablet.

Her bead of sweat that had migrated from her brow hung emotionless in the centre of the room. It saw her expressions of confusion, fear and excitement all pass by in instants. It saw her thinly muscled arms, weak from lack of specialised zero-g exercise, grasp tiny handholds as she pulled herself up to one final machine by the window on the ceiling. Fingers danced across a keyboard to the beat of an allegro tune. One final number was shown on an ancient screen, coated with dust and oil. The number was fifty seven digits long, but only the first mattered. It was above zero.

The scientist relaxed. Her thin arms let go of the handholds, and she drifted slowly down from the window towards the door. Her lone bead of sweat found a home in her hair, where it nestled among the short brown curls. Her face was one of serenity. A calm she hadn’t felt for nearly a decade. But one she would not last. A toothy grin exploded on her face.

Corkscrewing, she pushed the door to the laboratory open. The dark corridor it led into wasn’t much larger, but it would take her where she needed to go. Like a worm she wriggled around and between the various operating machinery protruding from the three walls of the triangular prismic corridor. As she moved, fans begun to purr, lights begun to flicker, and alarms to sing. Computers which hadn’t stirred for hundreds of years were waking up, groaning and roaring into life. As she pulled herself from handrail to handrails, she passed alert after alert, in every language the modern solar system knew, and a few it had forgotten. It was as if she herself was causing the excitement, like it was her arrival which was causing the hubbub.

As she emerged from the corridor into the command room, she felt like an angel. The corridor was alive, like a cityscape of a thousand lights and sounds. The space echoed with her laugher now. She was happier than she had ever been in all her life. Happier then when her mother returned alive from the hospital. Happier than when she was accepted into the university. Happier even than when she was commissioned to the Procul Station all those years ago.

Rising from the tunnel like a prophet, she saw the rest of the crew of the station waiting for her. The grizzled captain from Triton, his normally haggard face aglow with the joy of a new grandfather. The two sisters from Mars, their dark faces both beaming out the wide bridge window. The three maintenance staff, who she rarely saw outside of their quarters had made an appearance, and the two which had been lovers for the past few months were mid embrace. All six turned at her appearance, and she almost didn’t need to say anything. Behind the silhouettes of her crewmates, through the window, and over the scattered communications equipment jutting from the rear of the station she saw it.

The wormhole.

The induced portal. The subject of a million research papers. A million documentaries. A million cinemas. The subject of paintings, novels, poems. Of songs, of hopes, of dreams. Of her life.

The wormhole, which was sealed shut nearly a thousand years ago, had opened. It looked exactly how she expected it too, a two dimensional disk, through which an unparalleled blackness was visible. The ring of the disk seemed to melt the space around it, as tart pink and turquois fibres flowed and retracted into the nearby space. It was beautiful, and she could stare at it for days. But she couldn’t.

“Well? Miri?” The captain’s twanged voice cut through the scientist’s stupor. Hearing her name, she blinked and turned to him but couldn’t answer. “It’s the wormhole isn’t it?” He asked, cocking his head in that way he did when he wanted something.

All eyes were on her. She removed her forearm tablet, and pushed towards the captain to hand it to him but stopped. She let go of the tablet, and it drifted towards the floor. She was laughing again, and felt tears flow down her face. Her friends were suddenly upon her, hugging each other like children and laughing with her. Their voices ebbed and flowed from joy, to excitement, to elation. She felt like a little girl again, when her mother would hold her tight and sing her the songs of Procul, their new home across the stars.

She managed to push aside one of the Martian sisters, and met the captains eye. He remained by the console, his finger hovering over the button which would activate the beacon. She held his gaze for a few happy seconds then shouted as loud as she could over the uproar of the crew.

“Yes! Yes the portal is open! The way is open!” She threw back her head and laughed, sending her tears flying towards the ceiling. “Procul is open! We’re saved! We’re all saved!”

The captain wiped away what few tears adorned his bearded face, and he pressed the button. As he stomped towards his crew, roaring with laugher and calling for brandy and crackers, the computer begun calculating. An aerial almost thrice the length of the station from tip to tail, extended itself from the laboratory with the small circular window. Cylinders emerged from cylinders, lengthening and stretching outwards into the void, pointed back towards the home star. As it grew, the great lance begun to vibrate and quiver with energy.

As Miri and her friends supped and dined happily, listening to upmarket Martian pop music from centuries ago, the beacon activated. The surge of electricity was immense, it dimmed the lights on the station and caused their music to cut out, swallowing almost all the reserve power of the stations reactor. But it couldn’t damped the crew’s spirits. Their raucous laugher would have been heard from a listener even outside the stations walls, if not for the perfect vacuum. But instead they would hear the low hum of the beacon, broadcasting for the entire solar system to hear. It was a message in Old English, the language of the archaic rulers of Earth, the openers of the original wormhole all those centuries ago. Before the wars. Before the secession.

The message proclaimed brazenly that the wormhole was open, that Procul was within the grasp of man yet again! The message was eloquent, polite and inviting. From a warmer and softer time. It spoke of mutual benefits, of cooperation and alliances. Free of modern applications of propaganda and advertising. But the Solystem was different now. It was a savage and divided place. None of the old bitter enemies would suffer to see their opponents make it to the wormhole, and even the most weathered alliances would be tested.

But from inside the station, where Miri and the captain kissed each other’s cheeks while proclaiming the thousand years of peace, joy and love which would follow, the message was inaudible. It was nothing but a low hum from the command console. That’s how it all began, a low hum.

Written by me, more shall follow.