Pionneer’s Tower, Bennin Residence
Prime Dome, Planet Irkalla
4452.2.13 Interstellar
Janus walked into the foyer of Administrator Bennin’s building to find the wayfinder already waiting for him.
The architect, Nikandros, of the Cult of the Survivor, looked much the same as when Janus had first met him. His light gray robes were artfully arranged, folds intricate and hinting at traditions and meaning, and his silver mask, though expressionless, was brought to life by the slight cocking of his head. “Aspirant Invarian,” his raspy voice said. “I am pleased to see your advancement in the world.”
Although Janus had found the previous conversation with Nikandros informative, if not enlightening, Uncle Ivan’s lifelong antipathy toward the cult left Janus wary. “You're the wayfinder I'm to meet with?”
Nikandros spread his long, gloved fingers. “Prime Dome may be a big place, but the Survivor’s ministers are few and far between. Please, follow me to Administrator Bennin's quarters,” he continued, gesturing for Janus to follow. As they walked toward the elevator, Nikandros continued. “If I didn't know better, I would say you sound displeased.”
Janus wanted to tell Nikandros that he gave him the creeps, but that would be unnecessarily rude. “Sorry. It’s been an eventful week, and I’ve been training for most of the night.”
“Change makes us stronger,” Nikandros responded.
“Not always,” Janus answered as the two of them boarded the elevator. “Machines are made to function a certain way. I think domes are, too. When things change too fast and too quickly, things break.”
“Then it’s a good thing that domes are full of people, not machines,” Nikandros said with a hint of amusement. “How is your training?”
“Expedited,” Janus said.
“Yes, of course,” Nikandros continued, the door opening to Administrator Bennin's level. “Although lessons need not be learned in a classroom to be learned well. You have a unique history, work experience, and you were raised by an aspirant. The knowledge required need not be learned, only revealed.” He made a waving gesture over each of his eyes. “May the Survivor bless you with His wisdom.”
Janus didn't have time to respond as the door in front of them opened, and Adminstrator Bennin greeted them with a single head nod each. “Architect Nikandros, Aspirant Candidate Invarian.”
“Administrator,” Nikandros said, stepping out in front of Janus. “Thank you for welcoming us into your home.”
“It seemed like the most efficient path, given the speed of new developments,” Bennin said.
But it was the way Bennin said it that surprised Janus. The Hub administrator had always spoken to Janus in the polite and reserved tones of an older, experienced man toward a pupil, whereas his exchanges with Uncle Ivan had been brief, like that of friends or colleagues whose relationship had cooled over the years, or maybe that was just because of Craig’s death. But the way Bennin spoke to Nikandros was formal, almost deferential, and it occurred to Janus that an architect might be someone more important than he realized.
He’d have to ask Ryler about it the next time he had a spare minute to breathe.
The three took a seat around a small round table with a holo-projector built into the rich, brown material, in a shadowed corner of the massive study, out of the arched window’s light.
“On behalf of all the sectors, Janus, I wanted to congratulate you on becoming an aspirant candidate, but more importantly I wanted to thank you for taking on such a tremendous responsibility,” Bennin said. “I have no doubts that you will do your best to complete your training to Emissary Invarian’s exacting standards.”
“Where is Emissary Invarian?” Nikandros asked, his voice so wry it almost seemed like the silver mask’s lips were smirking. “I’ve tried to pay my respects, but he and I always seem to miss each other, even when he was in protective custody.”
“Uncle Ivan’s doing his best to get me ready,” Janus said. “We don’t have much time before the Trials start.”
“Yes,” Bennin said with a hint of approval. “I’m sure we can arrange a meeting once Candidate Invarian is on his way. I’ve been waiting a long time to hear the path of this year's aspirant.”
If there was pain behind Bennin's words, he hid it well, although there was a certain stiffness to him.
Janus nodded and looked at their silver-masked guest.
Nikandros pulled a small black disk from his robes and placed it on the table. Suddenly in the air above them hovered the spinning orb of Irkalla. Janus looked at the surface in awe. He’d seen maps and footage from the routes between some of the settlements—recordings that the merchants and occasional Hunters moving through Prime Dome uploaded to the noosphere—but this was the first time he’d seen his planet in its entirety, and even at the dizzying ranges involved, the level of detail was stunning.
Nikandros ran a finger over the black disc and a purple city appeared in the northern half of the spinning globe above them. Janus recognized the high mountain range to the east and the position of the low valley to the south as the location of Prime Dome.
“As you are likely aware, every aspirant team plots their own course, but the cult provides them with waypoints in order to balance the challenge of the Trials and ensure each participating dome is equally burdened in supporting the teams,” Nikandros began. “The path I am about to show you is for you and your team alone. You may come to interact with other aspirant teams during your journey, but your objectives are different, and not all paths are equal. That being said, the cult weighs the paths of the aspirant teams into their final decision, and I am pleased to inform you that your path is truly blessed by the Survivor.”
Janus felt his heart sink, and that was before eight green dots appeared, each connected by a green line to his final destination. It didn’t help to hear a sharp intake of air from Administrator Bennin, reflecting his own reaction.
“Prime Dome, Crossroads, Mercuria, Beta Station, Babylon Refuge, Tryton Road, Gaffer’s Lode, and Gemini Point,” Bennin mumbled, hope seeming to flood out of him with each named destination.
“Did we piss someone off?” Janus asked looking over the pathway. Some of the stops, like Babylon and Crossroads, were benign, but some of the others—especially Beta Station—were as bad as possible.
“Strength through struggle,” Nikandros responded, almost as if it were a gentle reminder. “The Survivor blesses those he deems worthy. Affording you a privilege like this speaks libraries.” The image above them shifted, and each of the cities expanded as they cycled through the pathway. “Remember that it is not a requirement to actually enter any of the domes, except the final one, but the results of the Trials are heavily influenced by your participation. We do encourage aspirants to interact with the domes we send them to, as that is the spirit of the adventure…”
“Interact?” Janus said incredulously. “Two of those domes are uninhabited, and more refugees from Beta Station show up every day!”
Nikandros spread his hands. “Be that as it may, you may find that each of these locales offers more than you expect.”
“It wouldn’t take much to exceed my expectations,” Janus muttered.
“This is… unexpected,” Bennin agreed. “Typically our aspirants have gotten to visit a few of our allied domes, one with trade agreements. I don’t think we’ve had an aspirant team in the past two hundred years that hasn’t picked up a team member from Lyceum or Marigold.”
Nikandros’s expressionless mask turned to Bennin, and Janus could feel the heat of the glare, even if it wasn’t visible. “Circumstances change and one must adapt to new conditions, Administrator. Is your current predicament not a result of falling into unproductive patterns? If it is as you say, then previous Trials have done your settlement a disservice. I admit that this path will be challenging—”
Janus scoffed at the understatement.
“—but it is far from impossible. You should have confidence that your aspirant team will have the fortitude and resilience to overcome any obstacle, and bring all that much more glory to your dome as a result.”
Bennin let out a sigh and stared at his hands.
Janus just stared at the map. He didn’t know as much as he should about Irkalla and its habitats, and he’d expected a challenging path across the dust, but aside from Crossroads, all of those names were bad. “You said we don’t have to enter the domes?”
“That’s pure sophistry,” Bennin said before Nikandros could answer. “Aspirants are graded on the speed of their journey and the difficulty of their path. If you don’t stop at the domes, you’ll be penalized and you’ll have to carry more supplies. Carrying more supplies will make you slower, and an attractive target for thieves and other aspirant teams.”
“So, if I don’t follow this path, I’m guaranteed to lose?”
Nikandros spread his hands. “You would certainly find it challenging to beat a team who followed theirs.”
“We need you to win,” Bennin told Janus. “I’ll explain more later, and I know it’s a lot to ask.”
Janus nodded. He knew some of it. He’d seen the signs over the past few days. Prime Dome was stretched to a breaking point, the kind of condition that happened with depressing regularity on their world and that forced hard decisions. If nothing changed, more expansions would be delayed, more maintenance tasks would pile up. It might even mean the mass exile of the dome’s less productive citizens, but that was never the easy fix it sounded like as families were broken up and those who couldn’t find a settlement willing to accept them turned to banditry to survive. A win in the Trials would add to Prime Dome’s prestige, bring new trade, and grant them a boon from the Cult of the Survivor. Advanced materials, life-changing technology, or even the assignment of a wayfinder to help solve the dome’s problems… winning the Trials would prevent a lot of suffering, but only if he survived to do it.
Nikandros turned off the projection. “It is my responsibility to remind you that you have one complete cycle, or twenty-eight days to get to your final destination, Gemini Station, after traveling to these other six optional waypoints, which we recommend. Speed is not the only criteria on which you will be judged, as the Survivor will also take into consideration how you completed the task. The survival of your team is one thing. The survival of this world is another.”
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Janus looked over to Bennin, but the administrator was still staring at his hands.
Nikandros seemed to take this as a tacit dismissal. “I will leave you to your deliberations.” He retrieved the small, black sphere and stood, touching Janus’s shoulder with a gloved hand before walking to the elevator.
Janus and Bennin sat there quietly for a long while before Janus broke the silence. “You don’t think I can do this, do you? I know I’m not who you wanted to represent Prime Dome, and I don’t blame you for that, but I’m what you’re going to get.”
Bennin looked up at him, as if surprised that he was still there. “No, Mr. Invarian. I was thinking I’m glad my son won’t have to go through what you will.”
***
The buggies were the standard vehicles that most of Irkalla’s inhabitants used for trips across the dust. There were quad-wheeled with fat tires, great suspensions, and no cab, which meant they were ideal for making speed runs from habitat to habitat, but you needed to pack a day tent for trips that lasted more than a night.
Janus didn’t have that much experience with them. He’d used one to haul a trailer of parts and spares to a job site, moving at the speed his natural caution encouraged, but there was no trailer to pull on this trip and his uncle was driving flat out and off-track, in the dark, their headlights bouncing crazily as they crossed the uneven terrain.
“Where in the void are we going?” Janus asked for the hundredth time. After the first hour, he’d felt anxious he was going to crash. Now, three hours in, Janus was bordering on road rage. “Or is this just pointless buggy-driving practice?”
“If this was practice I’d have set up some kind of obstacle course,” his uncle said over the shortwave. “You'll see soon enough.”
“You said that three hours ago!”
“Soon is a relative term,” Ivan responded.
More confident in his driving, Janus stayed calm by cycling through the buggy’s systems. The powerplant was an ingenious combination of microbial fuel cells, capacitors, and the vehicle’s life-support system. Hooked into his suit, the MFCs fed on wastewater, cleaning it and producing both electricity and CO2. The electricity drove the hybrid engine and charged the capacitors, the carbon dioxide was scrubbed, and fresh oxygen and water returned to the driver’s suit. The buggy’s power supply was supplemented by solar panels for charging over-day and a booster canister that had limited range but would send the quad hurtling forward at almost half-again its normal speed.
The landscape was beautiful. Never having gone that far from the dome since his terrifying escape from Prometheus Base as a young boy, this was the first time he was seeing this part of Irkalla. Bursts of crystal jutted out of the gray and white sands. Swirls of metallic fines had been pulled across the dust by waves of electromagnetic radiation from the sun, like a gardener’s rake through a rock garden, sometimes so artfully it felt like it couldn’t be natural. There was no wind to erase the slow changes, no life to disturb the patterns.
Janus scanned for clues as to their destination, but in spite of the scenery, he found no trace of inhabitation other than the tracks he and his uncle were following. Staying the course behind his uncle’s buggy, which remained stuck to a path indicated on the monitor attached to the central console, was the easy part. Avoiding the rocks and ditches on the little-used road was not as easy.
“Are we going to another dome?” Janus asked. “Am I finally going to meet my second?”
“It doesn't work like that. You can pick people up along the way, but your second always comes from the same dome as you,” his uncle responded. “It has to be someone you trust without question.”
Janus immediately thought of Ryler, although he was pretty sure his uncle wouldn’t approve.
Something appeared in front of them just then and Janus could make out the shape of a geodesic dome from the reflection in the headlights.
“I thought you said we weren’t going to another dome,” Janus said.
“I only said your second had to be from Prime Dome. Besides, this dome is uninhabited. It's one of Prime Dome's experimental domes—mostly plants that we don't want everyone and their mother seeing,” Ivan responded as he pulled his buggy to a stop. Janus parked next to him.
“If it belongs to Prime Dome, why is it so far away?” Janus asked as he disconnected from the buggy’s life support and double-checked the seals on his suit.
“A few reasons. One is so that some idiot doesn't accidentally cross-contaminate one of the experimental plants with the ones our dome relies upon. If there was some kind of disease or fungus outbreak, Prime Dome could purge the farms and use these plants to start over.”
“Sure, but you could just increase security, keep idiots out with biometrics or something like that.” The two of them walked through the dust toward the entrance. Janus looked up at the dome growing in his vision as they got close. The exterior of the dome scattered the details, but the dome glowed with a soft radiance of greens, yellows, and whites.
“Maybe,” Ivan responded as he plugged in a code for the plant and scanned his iris. The outer doors of the airlock opened and the two of them walked in. “But this also happens to sit right on top of the biggest pocket of frozen CO2 in the region. The fewer people know about it, the better.”
Frozen pockets of carbon dioxide were part of what made life possible on Irkalla. They were the base building block of the plants they ate and the air they breathed. A large CO2 excavation usually required protection from marauders, and their last training site had revealed that Prime Dome had reached the current limits on its ability to expand, but if the carbon entered the dome’s mineral cycle in the form of crops, no one would be the wiser.
The inner doors opened, revealing a greenhouse full of rows of plants in many different shapes and sizes that Janus had never seen. Janus walked over to them and began inspecting the closest as his uncle turned on more of the lights.
A warning flashed in the lower-left corner of Janus's helmet.
Volatile atmosphere.
Janus tapped the place where the message blinked at him and more words came up: Oxygen levels outside the suit at nearly 90%
“Uh, Uncle Ivan? My suit's telling me...”
“That we need to make a fire,” he chuckled at his own joke. “Yeah, we’ll do something about that. Oxygen levels this high aren't just extremely flammable, they're asphyxiating the plants. We're here to fix the carbon seeder, which is completely out.”
An initial chill ran up Janus’s spine. They were in extreme danger, and all of him wanted to immediately tackle the problem. But another part of him was relieved. A task where he just had to fix something was more to his taste and something he could wrap his head around.
Ivan led Janus past rows of plants to the heart of the dome and a small building that acted as a central pillar. He plugged in a code at the door and opened the central pillar, revealing a room full of sensitive machines. Janus could discern the function of most just from experience working with the different types of machines he’d seen working various jobs. Ivan tried to show him which one to work on, which was unnecessary as Janus knew by process of elimination which machine was the carbon seeder. He squeezed passed Ivan and opened the control panel, getting in with an access code Ivan gave him.
“I'm assuming we brought everything we need to fix this,” Janus suggested, looking over the read-outs. Everything was in the red and completely off-line.
“We’ve got what you need,” Ivan responded.
Janus tried not to take that as ominous as Ivan made it sound. “This is a big job,” Janus offered, trying not to get overwhelmed with the sheer volume of error codes displayed on the monitor. “I’m going to have to take the whole void-cursed thing apart just to see what’s causing the problems. I won’t be sure until I’ve got it disassembled, but I doubt we’ll get it done in one day. A complete rebuild is usually a two-day job, minimum. Likely three with the proper safety checks and recalibrations.”
“Well. Better hurry up and get started then,” his uncle responded. “You got five hours.”
“Five hours?” Janus groused. “Even if I knew what was wrong with it, I can’t even get it back to functional in four hours.”
“You better figure out a way, ’cause that’s how much time you have,” Ivan said. As he walked away he continued. “I don’t care what corners you have to cut. When something breaks down in the Trials, it’s not like you can triple-check it and make sure you’ve got everything with double redundancies.”
“What happens if I don’t?” Janus asked.
His uncle stopped and turned around. “It takes three to three-and-a-half hours to get here. Daylight’s in nine hours, so you’ve got just over five. You’ve got limited time to train for the Trials, Janus. I know you can fix the damned thing under ideal conditions with unlimited time. You’re going to have to learn to do it fast with what’s on hand, and not get us stuck out here all day where there’s no shelter. If you can’t adapt to the situation, you’re not fit to be an aspirant.”
“Fine,” Janus said, pulling up a timer with his wrist interface. Five-and-a-half hours and counting. He might be forced to do a rushed job, but he was going to do every minute of it they could spare.
Janus cussed under his breath but got to work, carefully disassembling the machine in a way so he could remember how he did it, all the while taking pictures using his retinal implant to make sure he didn’t miss a step or forget where something went. Upon removing the outer casing and the internal central shell, Janus found a rats’ nest of cables, interwoven and disorganized. His uncle came back with some materials, and Janus just kept his head down. Disassembly went quickly, but the problem wasn’t obvious. Without a clear diagnostic tool or the operating manual, Janus would just be guessing how to fix it, and he wasn’t about to rebuild the machine from the base up. Regardless, he began to meticulously check every plug and cable, trading out the pieces he could to see if any of them were defective. A lot of them were, it turned out, and once Janus got into the zone, methodically checking each component one at a time, time flew. Just when he was almost done, when he had replaced the last cable that he found defective, his uncle approached with a small bag.
“Quit for breakfast,” his uncle suggested. “You need to eat.”
“I only have an hour left,” Janus said. “I’ll need all of it to get the job done.”
“What’s wrong with it?” Ivan asked.
Janus shrugged. “Some kind of power surge. Looked like it fried about half the cables. It’s been a fairly easy fix in terms of difficulty, as long as I keep track of which cable and component goes where. More tedious than anything else.”
“And requires an attention to detail that few possess,” his uncle agreed, setting the bag next to him. “Maybe this is an easy job for you, Janus, but I’m pretty sure few other people would call working on the same machine ‘easy.’” He headed off again.
Janus opened the bag and removed his breakfast, then plugged the protein canister into the port on the left side of his helmet and checked the seal, then pushed a button to pop the feeding straw out and turned his head to bite it. Tastes just like home cooking, he thought as he gulped down the acrid-tasting glop. He spun the problem over in his head, trying to think whether there was anything he was missing. He had an hour until their run back to Prime Dome. That was cutting it close. Would his uncle allow him to keep going during daylight? Janus had heard a quality buggy could handle it, but it was dangerous for the driver.
Since they didn’t have day tents, they’d be screwed if one of them broke down. Janus figured they’d both climb onto a single buggy if that happened rather than risk trying to fix the problem. Still, maybe I should give myself some extra time to make the trip.
He shook his head. His uncle wouldn’t let him put himself in danger, let alone allow himself to be put in danger. Janus just needed to focus on the job. Maybe that was the lesson he was supposed to learn.
He got back to work, quickly reassembling the parts, making extra sure that he didn’t leave anything out or put something in the wrong place. After forty minutes of hard work, he reattached the outer casing, then checked the control panel. Yellows across the board, which meant it would need further repairs, but it was working. Not bad for a quick fix.
With a modicum of trepidation, he held his breath and began the process of bringing the machine online.
With a shiver and a groan, the machine woke up, several additional lights blinking on the readout as it began running a self-diagnosis. There were still problems, but the laundry list he had been greeted with was now shortened to a few lines of tolerable warnings.
Janus let out a sigh of relief. He looked at the time in the top right-hand corner of his helmet. He’d made his uncle's ridiculous deadline, with twenty minutes to spare. A thrill ran through him.
“Ivan?” Janus called over the radio. “Ivan! I got it done. It's all fixed.”
He felt really good. Sure, the thing was slapped together, and he had cut way too many corners. He hadn’t double-checked any of his components or cables, and he hadn’t run them in isolation. Nor had he assembled them together to isolate which of the myriad components were the ones actually causing issues. He had simply replaced the most obviously damaged ones and left the ones that seemed functional. Several of the cables he’d used were less than optimal, and would likely break after too much use.
Plus, he had proved to his uncle, and more importantly to himself, that he could do this under pressure. If he needed to fix something fast and poorly, he could do it. That was a good thing to know.
“Uncle?” Janus called again, but there was no answer.
Had he missed the deadline? No, his timer was still counting down, although he’d taken the full five-and-a-half hours, not the five his uncle recommended. Uncle Ivan would have come for him if it was time to leave. He was probably trying to give Janus a good scare and, good news, it was working.
“I'm on my way!” Janus called as he grabbed his bag and headed toward the airlock. The exterior lights were casting just enough radiance he could look out the transparent coating of the dome and see the landscape outside.
Uncle Ivan was gone.
Janus’s buggy was out there, but it looked like it had undergone a transformation—one that had ripped off its outer covering and wheels, removed all the hoses from the MFCs, and torn out the oxygen scrubber. Whatever that thing was outside may have at one time been his buggy, but now it was like a carcass that scavengers had picked clean.
Someone had gotten to it and hadn’t left much behind.