Sector Six Detainment Center, Prime Dome
Planet Irkalla, Survivor’s Refuge
4452.2.13 Interstellar
A team of six dome-sec officers forced their way through the crowd. It was all a blur to Janus. Questions, accusations, curses, and pleas were pelted at him by the emotional masses without any of it sticking. Something more tangible struck him in the side of the head, and his escort laid into the press with their stun rods, scattering people, dragging him forward by the arm. Time seemed to jump. The long, white corridor of the detainment center entrance was sliding by. It all felt like a dream.
“Take him to Confinement Two,” the desk sergeant said.
“You’re joking, right? This guy just murdered the aspirant,” the officer holding his arm responded.
“Dome admin is going to be all over this,” she answered. “Take him to C-2, and no accidents along the way.”
The dome-sec officer cursed and shoved Janus along, a left and then a right taking them deeper into the facility, automatic doors opening and shutting behind them. They reached another hallway of unmarked doors, and his escort opened the first door on the right.
Janus stepped into the room. “I need to—” Blinding pain and the crackle of a stun rod interrupted his words and dropped him to the floor. He could taste blood. He’d bitten his tongue.
“You void-sucking idiot! The sergeant said no accidents!”
“Wasn’t an accident,” a self-satisfied voice answered.
The door to the room slid shut and locked.
Janus laid still for a time, ears ringing, face against the cool floor. After a few minutes, he was able to push himself up onto his elbows. He wiped his mouth, staining his glove red, and pushed himself up to his feet carefully, still shaking from the nerve-disrupting pulse.
He was in a blackout room, isolated from the dome’s network. His wrist implant worked fine, it just had no signal, so he couldn’t contact Callie to make sure she was safe. The room was small but more comfortable than he’d expected, with a desk and chair, a twin bed, and its own sink, toilet, and shower. This was probably where important prisoners were taken, people with credits, lawyers, and connections who would probably get released and hold grudges. Janus was still in his hard suit, processor burned out, helmet missing. He went through the process of stripping it off, dropping it in a pile to the right of the door, noticing the extent of the damage for the first time. He’d been a few layers away from being one of the victims and not known it. He started to shake. This whole screwed-up ordeal had been everything he’d fought to prevent, and it happened to him anyway.
His coveralls were filthy, so he stripped them off, too, and turned on the shower. They’ll probably bill me for the water, he thought as the heat washed over him, but he didn’t care. It didn’t matter if he was a few credits short. They were going to pitch him out of the nearest functional airlock, and he didn’t have a suit anymore. Money was the least of his problems.
After an indecently long shower and using too much of the provided soap and shampoo, he lay on the bed with a towel wrapped around his waist.
Meg was dead. Callie was on her own. Maybe Ryler’s family would take care of her, although they had no reason to. Ryler might be willing to, but Janus couldn’t put that on him. She was a prodigy, unlike her idiot brother. Maybe dome admin would take her as a ward, or maybe they’d release Uncle Ivan to take care of her after Janus was gone.
“Mr. Invarian?” a woman said from the door.
It was the lieutenant who’d interrogated him the day before.
“I brought you a change of clothes,” she said, looking at the mess he’d left on the floor. Her jaw bulged when she saw the blood. “Do you need medical attention?”
“I’m fine,” Janus said.
“The security logs show one of my officers discharged his stun rod in this room. If you want to file a complaint—”
“I didn’t see who did it,” Janus said, cutting her off. He didn’t need enemies right now. He might not have any friends left.
“I’ll leave you to it, then.”
She left the spare underclothes, coveralls, and boots on the desk.
Janus got up, folded the towel over the back of the chair, and started getting dressed. His uncle hadn’t let him mope during their first days in Prime Dome after Prometheus Base fell. He’d been forced to pull it together, take care of his sister, and get on with his studies, whether those from the junior mechanic program or the ones his uncle required in addition. At least the clothes the lieutenant had brought him fit and were likely of higher quality than the ones he had back at the apartment. Even the boots were his size, if new and in need of breaking in.
When he was clothed and no longer at risk of being dragged out into the hallway with his bits dangling, Janus picked up after himself. He used his dirty undershirt to clean the blood from the floor, folded his old clothes, and placed them on the table. He did a proper inspection of his suit. A lot of the materials would be recycled, and the life-support system was mostly functional, in spite of the control system failure. He could probably have flipped it over to manual control, given the headspace and a helping hand from another vacuum worker. His brain was trying to keep the memories at bay, but some of them were leaking through in flashes. This guy just murdered the aspirant, the dome-sec officer had said—probably the same one who pushed a stun rod into Janus’s neck.
Janus walked to the sink and washed his hands.
Had he murdered Craig? He thought he remembered looking at the wounded early-shifters, seeing the helplessness in Meg’s face as she told him the fanatics outside would fight before they let her touch the precious Primer. Had some hidden resentment made him stop short of trying all he could? He’d certainly considered killing Lira, even if he chose not to.
He caught sight of himself in the sink mirror and felt the depth of how tired he was.
“You look like hell,” Uncle Ivan said from the doorway.
Janus looked at him blankly. “They let you out.”
Uncle Ivan sighed and walked in, allowing the door to close behind him. “I was never ‘in,’ Janus. That was an excuse to talk to dome admin.”
“About what?”
“About the stupidity of the maintenance quotas, about their idiotic policy toward outsiders, and about Lira Allencourt’s complete unsuitability as a representative of the dome.”
Janus looked at his uncle. Ivan was clean-shaven, clear-eyed, and straight-backed. He thought back to the holo of his dad and said, “You were an aspirant.”
“Several times,” his uncle said, crossing his arms.
“Craig recognized you at the bar. That’s why he backed down.”
“He didn’t know me personally, but he’d seen me around his father’s house.”
Janus wanted to be angry about it, but he just couldn’t find the energy. “You hid it from Callie and me.”
“I have reasons. I won’t talk about them now.”
“But we lived like we were nobody. I spent half my childhood thinking we were going to wind up homeless.”
Uncle Ivan shrugged. “You didn’t, though. You worked hard, and you got pushed around, but you had a place to sleep and your sister got into the advanced class.”
“And you made that possible?”
“I didn’t have to,” Ivan said. “I trained you. I taught you how to win, and the two of you won on your own. I’m not going to apologize for that.”
Janus sat on the end of the bed. Of course his uncle wasn’t going to apologize. Uncle Ivan never did. “So, what? You were really going to fix things? All I had to do was sit tight?”
Uncle Ivan’s face softened, and he shook his head. “We would have gone through a rough patch, but things would have worked out. I’d have gotten you your job back after the Trials started, and Callie would have dropped from the program but she’d have gotten a special apprenticeship. Did you know her report made it all the way to the Council?”
“She just finished it yesterday,” Janus said, surprised.
Ivan nodded. “Her teacher forwarded the research proposal, and they’ve been keeping an eye on her. She didn’t get everything right, but the maintenance divisions in two out of the seven sectors are thinking of implementing something like what she’s suggesting.”
“Good for her,” Janus said. He couldn’t have been prouder of her. “What happens now that I screwed everything up?”
Ivan sighed again and scratched his cheek. “They’ve got teams reviewing everything about the incident, including the maintenance records. A lot of people are going to get fired or demoted. Some might get exiled. Dome admin has to move fast, or things are going to get dangerous between the outsiders and the Primers.”
Janus nodded. He figured Prime Dome’s leadership would have to make examples, show people they were addressing the problem that lead to Craig’s death.
“They’re going to want to talk to you,” Ivan said. “Just be honest. Stay objective. They’ll already know most of the facts. They’ll be wanting to know why you acted the way you did.”
“Does it matter?” Janus asked.
“Of course it does, Janus,” Ivan said. “I know you and I haven’t seen eye to eye lately, and I probably put too much on your shoulders too soon. But you’re a good man. Naive, for sure… You remind me so much of your mother and father sometimes, it hurts to be around you, but I’m proud to be your uncle.”
Janus felt himself tearing up. Good people don’t have to stop themselves from murdering helpless people, Uncle.
“I was actually going to start training you as an aspirant next year, have you ready to run the Trials in three years, four at the outside… That won’t be possible, now, but I always thought you had it in you.”
“I understand, Uncle,” Janus said, every word only reinforcing his sense of loss.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Uncle Ivan walked over and put a hand on his shoulder. “Just tell the truth, son. You know I don’t put much stock in Ryler’s nonsense about the Survivor—that lot have more bodies stashed in storage lockers than anyone on the planet. But things have a way of working out for the people who deserve it.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Janus said, because he knew he didn’t deserve it. Meg deserved it, and he’d sent her to die outside the airlock.
The void takes, and takes, and it is never full.
***
Minutes passed with no further visits and no contact with the outside world in his network-isolated room. Janus sat down, stood back up, tried pacing for a while, then lay on the bed. He thought of turning on the program his mother had made for him, but he wasn’t sure he could bear seeing her or his father.
He kept picturing Meg’s face as he told her to hold the breach, and it was suffocating him.
An hour passed, and a politely neutral dome-sec officer brought him a tray of food. It was fresh vegetables from hydroponics, not the rehydrates Janus and his family ate most days, as well as crispy fried tofu with little white seeds, scallions, and a tangy brown sauce. He really was on the wealthy side of the detainment center. They must really want to keep me separated from the other prisoners before my hearing. Janus found he was starving and polished off the meal, drinking several glasses of water before collapsing on the bed. The exhaustion and stress of the morning had finally caught up with him, and he fell into a dreamless sleep.
“Look at this bastard sleeping like he didn’t do anything wrong,” a woman said.
“Get up, Invarian. Time to face the music,” a man added.
Janus blinked, disoriented, his head heavy from some sleep but not enough. Rough hands grabbed him by the arms and cuffed him again, then marched him from the room. Still no signal, because of the cuffs, and he was led deeper into the facility, away from Sector Six toward the Hub. The dome-sec officers led him into a large, darkened space and stood him under a spotlight before taking his cuffs off. “Stay here, and don’t speak until spoken to,” the female officer warned.
They left him standing there, squinting at the darkness beyond the pool of light. The room was roughly circular, maybe slightly wider than it was deep. About five meters from where he stood, concrete walls rose, turning into tiered seating to his left and his right, while ahead was a curved, single podium seven chairs wide, and Janus swallowed.
This was the Council chamber.
This was where sentences of exile were announced.
The light in the stands slowly rose, revealing a seated crowd. Janus spotted Callie with Uncle Ivan, up front. His sister looked nervous, his uncle tight-lipped and giving nothing away. Barry was sitting next to them, although there was no sign of Ryler. Janus saw several of the people who had interviewed him the previous day, except for the head of sector maintenance who had either been fired already or was too busy to see him get thrown out.
There was no sign of Lira, either. He would have thought she would be there for his punishment. Several of the sorters had shown up; it was the middle of main shift, five hours after the accident. The death of the aspirant must have thrown the whole sector into disarray for them to be given a day off work. He could see people talking to each other, not whispering, some of them even shouting to each other above the crowd but he couldn’t hear any of it—some kind of sound-dampening technology? Or maybe the crowd wasn’t there at all, just a soundless projection from somewhere else?
“Order!” the bailiff announced, and the crowd stood.
Seven figures in ceremonial robes entered the room, taking place at the raised desk in front of Janus. They were the seven section administrators, the ruling Council who made all the major decisions concerning the dome’s future. Sentencing was normally the purview of dome-sec and the courts, but capital punishment—which exile frequently was—was the remit of the Council.
“Please be seated,” the Hub administrator, leader of the seven, said. He was a tall, thin man who looked as exhausted as Janus felt. He looked around the room as if the act of breathing hurt him before taking his seat. “The hearing concerning Mechanic Janus Invarian’s involvement in the Sector Six airlock failure of forty-four fifty-two, two, twelve. All sector administrators are in attendance, session presided by Administrator Gregory Bennin.” He finally turned to look at the defendant, and Janus’s heart sank as he saw a flash of grief mixed with hatred in the administrator’s eyes. It didn’t surprise him, however. Administrator Bennin was the late Craig Bennin’s father. “Mr. Invarian, the Council and its designated investigators have already reviewed witness testimonies and footage from various sources. The facts have been painstakingly reconstructed. What remains in question is your state of mind when you took the actions you did. Do you understand?”
“I understand, your honor.”
“I am not a judge, Mr. Invarian. You may address me as Administrator Bennin, or simply administrator.”
“Yes, administrator,” Janus said.
And he did understand. The Council had already reached a conclusion. Any slip-ups he made would be used to cement their judgment.
“Let’s begin, then. Two days ago, at the end of early shift, you had an altercation with Craig Bennin and Lira Allencourt. Why?”
“Lira felt like I had interfered with their training.”
“Please remember the purpose of this hearing, Mr. Invarian,” Administrator Bennin said. “We are not asking you to speculate about Lira Allencourt or Craig Bennin’s motives, only to talk about yours. You were reprimanded by an aspirant candidate’s second. Why didn’t you just apologize and move on?”
Janus clenched his jaw. “Because they were wrong and what they were doing was dangerous.”
The Sector Four administrator leaned forward. “Others were using the software override as well. You didn’t confront them, only Ms. Allencourt.”
He was about to point out Lira started it, but that would only have incurred more criticism from the Council. “I didn’t confront anyone. I stood my ground. It’s not my responsibility to make others do things my way, or set dome policy. I can only account for my own actions.”
“On that much, we agree,” Administrator Bennin.
“But what they did was still worse than a regular person using the override,” Janus said, knowing he shouldn’t, and yet not quite able to stop himself.
Administrator Bennin frowned, but the Sector Two administrator said, “Why do you feel that way, Mr. Invarian?”
Janus swallowed. He could feel everyone’s eyes digging into him, and Administrator Bennin’s in particular. “I didn’t think this way, at the time, or if I did, it wasn’t a conscious thought. But someone I spoke to recently pointed out that things don’t just ‘happen’ in a society like ours. They’re the product of choices, of policies and unspoken customs.” He spotted Nikandros in the crowd, and the masked face nodded at him. “People didn’t think of Craig as an aspirant candidate, Administrator,” he told Administrator Bennin. “They assumed he would represent Prime Dome in the Trials, and so everything he did was good and just, and he was setting policy with every action he took.”
“And he was wrong?” Administrator Bennin asked, in the manner of a teacher asking a trick question.
Janus shook his head. “Not necessarily, when it comes to the override system. I didn’t trust it at the time, but since then, I’ve looked up how the software works and I believe it to be safer than someone without mechanical expertise trying to repair the system. What Craig and Lira did wrong was to try to shut me up just because I disagreed with them, and they failed to consider what the cumulative effects of their actions would lead to.”
The administrators looked at each other as if confirming something they’d previously discussed.
“Let’s move to the next question,” Administrator Bennin said.
For the next hour and fifteen minutes, the Council examined the decisions he made over the past two days in painstaking detail. At times they were incisive and hostile, while at others it seemed like some of the administrators—Sector Two, in particular—were trying to help him tell his side of things. The crowd fidgeted, fell asleep, got into arguments, and yelled what might have been insults or support, but always soundlessly. Janus’s feet and knees ached from standing after what had been a physically and emotionally exhausting day with not enough sleep.
“One more question, Mr. Invarian,” Administrator Bennin asked.
“Yes?” Janus asked, a long way past the point of formality.
“When you spoke to Sector Six maintenance, you told them you ‘had the aspirant.’ We’ve reviewed your communications with Megan Greene, your shift supervisor and have established that this was a deliberate falsehood. Why did you lie?”
“Because people were dying, and it was the only way I was going to get them help.”
“That’s a very cynical view of your fellow dome members, Mr. Invarian,” the Sector Six admin said warningly. “You realize your decision probably killed our lead aspirant?”
Janus straightened. Ordinarily, he would never have stood up to someone like a sector administrator, but he was tired and angry, and someone had leaked the video of Meg’s last moments on the dome network and he’d hadn’t been able to watch it because he was in a cell. “Seventeen people died, sir. Nine died because of faulty maintenance and bad luck. Five died because I didn’t lie fast enough, and that’s my only regret. Two died because citizens who should be tried for murder put one person’s life over their neighbors’, and one—just one—died because it’s an aspirant’s job to die for the dome, not the other way around.”
There was stunned silence in the room, although at least some of the administrators seemed pleased with his answer.
Two dome-sec officers stepped forward to watch Janus while the dome administrators deliberated inside their own privacy field. The conversation was quite animated, with Sector Two and Sector Four on opposite sides of a passionate argument, while Administrator Bennin, representing the Hub, stayed mostly silent with his back to the stand. Janus wished he was better at reading lips; some of the vacuum workers had the knack for it, and it could come in handy if the suit-to-suit comms failed, but Janus had never learned.
“The administrators have made their decision,” Administrator Bennin announced, taking his seat again. “Mr. Invarian, do you have anything further you would like to share before we conclude?”
Janus steeled himself. In moments, the two dome-sec officers would take him away. Maybe he would be allowed to say goodbye to his family, or maybe not. From there, he would be given a rudimentary suit, some basic supplies, and loaded onto a caravan leaving the dome—not to help him, but to prevent anyone from assisting him, or letting him back in. The only thing left to do was speak the truth. “I do, administrator.”
“Go ahead.”
Janus lifted his chin. “For the past twelve years, my family and other outsiders have been systematically put down and shoved aside by this Council in order to maintain a lie. Being born in Prime Dome does not make you better. Only actions do that, and even if you exile me, it won’t change the fact that, for whatever reasons this policy you’ve enforced was implemented, it needs to change. We are all now paying the price for your mothers’ and fathers’ decisions, and I can’t think of any better example than having me be judged by the father of Aspirant Candidate Bennin. If there was any justice in Prime Dome, you would have recused yourself.”
The administrators flinched from his statement. Some looked at Administrator Bennin in horror, and there was a mix of surprise, sadness, and anger in the crowd as well. Janus tried to find Callie and Uncle Ivan in the stands, but they’d disappeared. Had Uncle Ivan taken Callie away so she wouldn’t have to see her big brother get sentenced? The thought erased the last vestiges of his courage. He was about to lose his home for the second time in just over a decade.
As for Administrator Bennin, he was quiet for a moment, composing himself before speaking. “I understand you’ve had a harrowing experience, Mr. Invarian, both in the past hours and during the past years you’ve lived with us as a citizen of Prime Dome, regardless of birth. I will now read the conclusion of the Council. Should you still have concerns when I’m done, I will retract my vote. As you have rightly pointed out, my objectivity is in question.
“First, the Council and dome security have concluded that you had no part in the catastrophic failure of the Sector Six airlock. We have noted that you, among others, submitted maintenance requests for said airlock which were handled in accordance with dome policy. The full revision and monitoring of this policy, as well as any negligence by dome and sector maintenance personnel, are the subject of a separate inquiry.
“Second, the Council and the Sector Two medical staff have concluded that you are not responsible for Craig Bennin’s death. My son suffered several serious injuries, which proved fatal before he could receive adequate medical care and would have whether he was evacuated by rescue vehicle or through the airlock. We commend you for your decisive action in saving the lives that you did. Several of the families wish to thank you in person, if you’re willing to meet them.
“Third and most importantly, the Council has concluded that at all times during the challenges of the past days, you have put Prime Dome’s safety ahead of your own, that you have been loyal to those near you, and that you did not take the actions you did out of malicious intent, but out of sound judgment, which, while limited by the information available to you at the time, was consistent with what the members of this Council hope they, too, would have done. With some small exceptions,” he said, glancing at the Sector Four administrator.
“It is therefore the decision of this court that you should be enrolled in the aspirant candidate program immediately and, provided you meet the standards of the program coordinator, represent Prime Dome in this year’s Trials. This concludes this hearing of the Prime Dome Council.”
Janus looked up at the Council without finding the words to speak. The judgment they’d pronounced was so far removed from what he’d expected, it took several seconds for his brain to merely register it, let alone come up with an appropriate emotional response. The Sector Four administrator was already leaving. The Sector Two administrator nodded to Janus, then glanced meaningfully at Administrator Bennin.
“Administrator Bennin?” Janus said as the man turned away. “I’m so sorry for… for my outburst, and for your loss.” He could see it now, that the emotion the administrator was hiding wasn’t directed at him but was rather the suppressed rage and grief of a father who’d just lost his only child.
“We all make mistakes,” Administrator Bennin said, half-turned, his left hand resting on the table. Then he stepped back into the dark.
Callie slammed into Janus’s side, wrapping her arms around him, and he hugged her back, legs almost giving out from fatigue and relief. “Janus, you made it! You’re going to be the aspirant!” she squealed.
“Aspirant candidate,” Uncle Ivan grumbled, placing one hand on Janus’s shoulder. “He still has to make it past me.”
Janus looked at his uncle and nodded. He was in shock, reeling from the disaster, unsure what the cost of his approbation and elevation would be, but for the first time in the past few days, it felt like the challenges he faced were ahead of him, not coming at him from the side.