Faster Than Light: Babel Among the Stars

Faster Than Light: Babel Among the Stars By Malcolm Pierce


Faster Than Light: Babel Among the Stars

Malcolm Pierce



Copyright 2012 Malcolm Pierce

Smashwords Edition



Other entries in the Faster Than Light Series available viaSmashwords:

Faster Than Light: The Fallen Goddess

Faster Than Light: Dobhriathar



1.

Firstthe wheel, the horse, and the carriage conquered the land. Thenlongships, frigates, and cruisers tamed the sea. Planes andhelicopters lifted man into the clouds. For centuries, there seemedto be one horizon that could not be crossed. The stars were so vastand so empty that no vessel, no matter how fast, could traverse them.

TheHeilmann Drive changed everything. Any distance, no matter howgreat, could be leapt in a matter of seconds. In the blink of aneye, a ship carrying hundreds could move from one end of the galaxyto the other.

Manspread out across the stars, laying claim to planet after planet. In2192, there were exactly two planets in the universe known to supporthuman life. In 2195, there were humans living on twenty planets,with at least three dozen more colonizations planned.

Nota single complex alien life form was found in all of the worldssettled by man. Earth was the only planet which fosteredmulticellular organisms. But as time passed, it did not matter. Civilization splintered as isolated cultures developed on every newworld. Within a thousand years, each planet seemed quite alien tothe others.

Onething held them together. One thing kept them united as the singlehuman race. The Heilmann Drive. Ships leapt between the planetsevery hour, carrying goods, passengers, and information. At the apexof interstellar travel, there were over three thousand starshipsoperating at any given moment.

Soonthere will be only one.

*

SethGarland blinked through the pain searing through his head. He triedto rub his eyes but he couldn’t pull his hand up to his face. Hiswrists were bound behind his back.

Ashis vision adjusted to the darkness, Seth realized that he was insome sort of jail cell. It was a small room with a bed and only oneentrance. The door was enveloped by a shimmering energy field. There was a man standing on the other side of the field. Seth couldsee his legs. One of them looked larger than the other. That wasodd.

Howdid he get here? His memory was hazy. The last thing he couldremember was the public assembly. He was standing in the crowd,watching Chairman Stephens speak. But he couldn’t hear him. Itwasn’t the Chairman’s fault. His voice was certainly loudenough. Seth just couldn’t bear to listen to him anymore. Butwhat happened next?

“Lookat me!” the man on the other side of the energy field yelled. Sethglanced up at him. In the dim light, he looked old. He had whitehair and an unsteady posture. The only clearly visible part of hisbody was the insignia on his chest. He was a commissar, one of thehighest ranks in the Republic. It was a designation usually onlygiven to senior military officers. But as the man leaned down tostare into Seth’s eyes, Seth realized that he was much younger thanhe thought. His face was smooth. His blue eyes shined even in thedark jail cell.

“Whoare you?” Seth asked. “Where am I?”

Theman took a deep breath. His leg twitched and he grimaced. Heextended his arm and leaned against the metal wall of the jail cell. “I am Commissar Phaer Absalom and you are in the custody of thePeople’s Interstellar Republic.”

“Custody? What is this about?”

Absalomclenched his teeth and growled as he spoke. “How can you hate theRepublic?” he asked. “I don’t understand.”

Sethwasn’t sure what to tell him. He didn’t know where to start. Still, as he tried to formulate a coherent answer, his head cleared. Everything was starting to come back to him.

Afew hours ago, at the Assembly, Seth had grown tired of listening tothe endless litany of platitudes spilling from the mouth of ChairmanStephens. Seth didn’t attend the assembly to hear a bureaucratcongratulate himself and his government for an hour. He’d hoped toask a question, a very simple question, that everyone seemed to beignoring in this time of crisis. It wasn’t anything inflammatory. It was an entirely reasonable inquiry.

Butthat wasn’t going to happen. The Chairman wasn’t takingquestions and he wasn’t giving answers. He was simply content tospend his time talking about the amazing efforts of the Republic andits valiant efforts to protect its citizens. It was all bullshit andSeth decided to take matters into his own hands.

Sethbolted through the crowd, pushing people down, and climbed up onstage. He thought about trying to grab the microphone away from theChairman but the guards were closing in. There wasn’t time. Instead, he yelled at the top of his lungs. He wasn’t sure if thecameras picked up his voice, or if any of the reporters near thefront heard him. If he made it through to just one of them, it wouldbe worth it. He could still remember what he asked, because it wasthe only thing he’d been thinking about for the last three months.

“They’regoing to take the stars away from us,” he shouted. “Do youunderstand that?” Then the stun prods hit him.

Onthe other side of the energy field, Absalom snorted. He took a fewsteps back and grabbed a folding chair that was leaning up againstthe far wall. He placed it in front of the energy field andawkwardly tried to sit. There was something wrong with his left leg. He couldn’t bend it. Even as he sat, he kept it extended to hisside.

“Thisis all quite a sin-blooded shame, Mr. Garland,” Absalom said. “I’ve looked over your records. You could have been a valuableasset for the Republic. Under better circumstances we could havebeen friends.” He shrugged. “But that was not meant to be.”

Sethglared at him and struggled with the bonds tying his wrists. “Thinkabout what is happening,” he said. “They are undoing thousandsof years of human progress! They are dividing resources, not tomention families and friends and...and the entire human species! Howcan you just let them do it?”

“I’mnot letting anyone do anything,” Absalom spat. “I am the onedoing it.” He gritted his teeth together, as if the very sight ofSeth made him sick. “The Chairman and the High Council haveentrusted me with the enforcement of the Spatial PreservationAct.”

Sethcould tell that Absalom expected this would make him angry. Itdidn’t. In fact, a smile broke out across Seth’s face. He triedto repress a laugh.

“What’sso funny?”

“Ithought I failed,” Seth replied. “I thought no one even noticedme. But if you’re here... If they really sent the man in chargeof this travesty to see me, then I must have gotten someone’sattention.”

*

Itall began ten weeks before Seth Garland would find himself in a jailcell, face-to-face with one of the most powerful men in the Republic. It was before he could even fathom such a thing was possible. Hislife was insufferably boring. Every day was just like the last.

Sethwas a student at the prestigious Republic School of InterplanetaryRelations. For most people, that would be enough. RSIR onlyaccepted the best and brightest. It was usually the culmination ofyears of higher education, since admission required knowledge inmultiple fields and proficiencies in several disciplines. At RSIR,students learned how to mediate conflicts on every planet in thegalaxy.

ThePeople’s Interstellar Republic, which was comprised of Earth andtwo other nearby worlds, controlled all interplanetary transportationin the galaxy. There was only one for a ship to travel faster thanlight: an engine known as the Heilmann Drive. Very few people knewhow to operate a Heilmann Drive and even fewer knew how to build one. Every single one of those people was a citizen of the PIR and keptunder heavy guard.

Thedozens of other planets were allowed to transport goods and people onthese ships in exchange for a single concession: they had to submitto PIR mediation in the event of any armed conflict. If a planetrefused or rejected the decision of the mediator, the PIR wouldsuspend trade routes to that world. Since there were no twocolonized planets less than fifteen lightyears apart, this left thepunished world abandoned, unable to even communicate with the rest ofhumanity.

Inthis way, the PIR enforced peace across the galaxy, and it did sowith RSIR trained diplomats. These diplomats wielded extraordinarypower, essentially able to control the destiny of entire planetsunder threat of exile.

Sethhoped to be one of those diplomats, but he was different from hisclassmates. They were patriots at heart. They were motivated bytheir love for the PIR. Many people believed that diplomacy was thehighest form of service to the Republic. Seth didn’t care for suchthoughts. He didn’t attend RSIR to learn how to serve hisgovernment. He was there because he wanted the power. It was thatsimple. He never did a very good job of hiding his motivations andthis worried the faculty.

“Idon’t think you understand the purpose of the School,” Dr.Hammond said. He was one of the resident psychotherapists at RSIR. There were three other doctors just like him, and they counseled thestaff and students on a regular basis.

“Okay,”Seth said. His dark hair hung around his almond-shaped eyes as helooked at the doctor. He leaned back in his chair, trying to actcomfortable. He hated every moment he spent with thepsychotherapist. “How about you tell me what the purpose of theschool is?”

Dr.Hammond sighed. Of the four doctors at RSIR, he was the only one whorefused to give up on Seth Garland. The other three wouldn’t evenspeak to him.

Sethliked to think that he’d broken them.

Thisone was different. A large, jovial man, Dr. Hammond seemedfascinated by Seth. He didn’t grow tired of his games or tricks,and Seth had thrown everything in the book at him. Seth had tried toavoid his mandatory therapy sessions ever since admission to RSIR. When the school forced him to attend or drop out, he decided to makea mockery of the process. He made up stories, he rambledincoherently, he pretended to have symptoms of various diseases ofthe mind... He did whatever it took to make the psychologistsrealize that these sessions were a waste of time. And it would haveworked, if not for Dr. Hammond.

“Peace,”the therapist said. “You are being trained to bring peace to allthe planets in the galaxy.”

Sethlaughed. That was what he thought the doctor might say. “Ridiculous. You think they have peace on Caustria? How aboutArya? And Vangelia?”

Dr.Hammond hesitated. The three planets Seth named were well-known fortheir brutal internal policies and human rights violations. Caustriaemployed a peculiar form of slavery that required their young tosurvive a period of indentured servitude before gaining the right tofree employment or the ownership of property. Arya prevented theimmigration of anyone without certified ancestral records that provedthey were descended from certain parts of Earth. Vangelia wascontrolled by a ruthless theocracy that oppressed and tortured women,as well as branding dissidents as heretics.

ThePeople’s Interstellar Republic refused to revoke the travelprivileges of any of those worlds. This was only one of the reasonsSeth hated the PIR.

“Whatyou are talking about is their culture,” Dr. Hammond saideventually. “And we have no right to interfere in that. I thoughtyou were a fan of self-determination.”

Sethglared at the doctor. “You have no idea what you’re talkingabout. Just like every other stupid Republic shill, you can’tdistinguish between the will of the people and the will of theirgovernment.”

Dr.Hammond’s eyes went wide and he stared at Seth. Seth froze,realizing that for the first time he’d told the therapist what wasreally bothering him. What he said wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t agame or a joke. It was the very thing that haunted him constantly.

“Ithink we’ve reached a breakthrough, Seth,” the doctor said. “It’s clear that your problems stem from some misconceptionsabout the Republic. Let’s talk about that.”

Misconceptions? Seth had to keep from laughing. He had no misconceptions about thePIR. He knew exactly what they were.

ThePIR began as a provisional government cooperative between the UnitedStates of America and the People’s Republic of China shortly afterthe invention of faster-than-light travel. Two huge issues faced theworld once the Heilmann Drive was invented:

First,dozens of habitable planets were discovered, and almost everyalienated group on Earth wanted to claim one for itself. Second, theHeilmann Drive was dangerous. The Heilmann Drive allowed a starshipto fold and compress the space in front of it, then leap across thecompressed space to anywhere within the galaxy. Any matter caught inthe folded space was converted to energy. This made the HeilmannDrive a powerful weapon, capable of destroying planets or even stars.

Thetwo most powerful governments on Earth cooperated to secure theexclusivity of the dangerous Heilmann Drive, as well as apportion thehabitable planets to colonists. The nations of the world pooledtheir military resources behind the new cooperative. They preparedfor the possibility of hostile alien life in the galaxy.

Beforetoo long, the boundaries between the nations of Earth began todissolve. Governments and armies fraternized together, formingpersonal and political alliances. Anyone who didn’t like thissudden globalization left Earth for another world. Before long, thelegislatures of the Earth’s governments voted to consolidate. Twonearby worlds requested to join in the alliance and the PIR wasformed.

Inthe hundreds of years since the PIR came into existence, it didnothing but hold back humanity. To their credit, they provided forthe prosperity of all their citizens. No one starved in the PIR. Infact, most people in the Republic struggled with health issuesrelated to obesity or over-consumption. Very few people werediscontent. Even those who held the most menial of jobs, or no jobat all, were well-supported by the government and had access to allvarieties of entertainment.

Butthat was only one side of it. This prosperity was achieved by force. Scientists and engineers who knew anything about the technology thatmade the Republic such a paradise were kept on Earth by themilitary. Anyone who spoke out about this policy was charged withtreason and sedition if they were lucky. If they weren’t lucky,they simply disappeared.

“I’dtell you what I think about the Republic,” Seth said. “But Iwould be taking my life into my own hands. That’s all I need tosay.”

Dr.Hammond smiled in a feeble attempt to seem inviting. “I am yourdoctor. Nothing you say goes beyond these walls.” He gesturedaround him.

Sethshook his head. “Don’t try that with me,” he said. “Do theother students believe that shit? Because that’s a shame.”

“Idon’t understand.”

“Youare employed by RSIR,” Seth said. He crossed his arms, leaningback in his chair. “RSIR is funded entirely from the discretionarybudget of the Republic Military. Anyone who is employed, directly orindirectly, through the military serves at the discretion of the HighCouncil. That means that you are forbidden from entering into anyprivate contract or covenant relating to your job—explicit orimplied.”

Dr.Hammond stared at him, stunned. Seth realized that he didn’tunderstand the nature of his job. Maybe he really thought that hewas trying to help the students at RSIR. If so, it was pitiful. Seth was glad to clear things up.

“Basicallyyou’re not really acting as a doctor right now and I’m not reallyacting as your patient. You are a consultant to the RepublicMilitary with a medical background. I am an interview subject. Andyou are actually obliged to report any treasonous speech to yourcommanding officer. In this case, that would be the RSIR’s Dean ofStudent Affairs.”

“I... I...” The usually jovial man looked despondent. “But that’snot what I... I’m a doctor.”

Sethshrugged. “Check the regulations. It’s there.”

Dr.Hammond continued to gape. “But that’s not right. Theyshouldn’t be able to do that.”

“Careful,”Seth replied. He held up a finger, as if to tell the doctor to stopspeaking. “My education is paid for through a separate but verysimilar fund. I am required to report any treasonous speech directlyto the nearest Republic Intelligence branch. If I don’t, I couldbe expelled.”

Thedoctor went quiet. Seth thought about elaborating further. The PIRregulations were so byzantine and complex that, at some point, almostevery citizen receiving funds allocated by the High Council wasrequired to report treason. It had become a standard rider attachedto any spending bill that created new employment, educational grants,or welfare benefits.

“Don’tyou see, doctor? None of us are doing what we really want to bedoing.”

Thetherapist looked up and towards the wall to his right. There was asmall window there, looking out on the blue skies outside. Rows ofmetal girders partially obscured the sun. They were the foundationof the floating hydroponic arrays which fed most of the people ofEarth.

“You’rewrong. They do all of this for our own good.” The doctor paused,thinking for a moment. “Do you know much about history, Mr.Garland?

Sethshrugged. “There is a lot of history, doc. You’re going to haveto be more specific.”

“Untilthe formation of the PIR, this world was locked in perpetualconflict. We killed each other, we tortured each other, we starvedeach other. Now that’s all over. The PIR does what it must tomaintain that peace.”

Aheavy silence fell over the room as Seth realized the doctor couldnot be reached. For just a moment, it seemed as if he would listen. No. Instead, he was content to repeat the propaganda of theRepublic.

“Thatworld created this one,” Seth said. “What will this worldcreate? Nothing. We haven’t created a single thing in a thousandyears.” He stood up and grabbed his black jacket off the back ofhis chair. “We’ve talked enough. I’m done. Write whateveryou want in your report. Tell the Republic authorities what I think. You won’t be the first.”

Thetherapist didn’t try and stop him. Seth wasn’t surprised. Hehoped this would be the end of the charade. Once this doctor gave upon him, there wouldn’t be any more licensed therapists at RSIR toassign him to. Maybe he could finally be free of the weeklysessions.

Seththrew open the doors to the office and stormed into the hall. Hepressed the call button to summon the magnetic lift. He started tolook forward to going back to his room, getting a little sleep, andeven preparing for class. As much as he didn’t like hisinstructors at RSIR, sometimes he found their lessons amusing.

Beforethe magnetic lift could arrive, Seth caught something in the cornerof his eye. Several people were gathered around a viewscreen nearthe end of the hall. They were mostly support staff--guards,secretaries, and janitors at RSIR--but even two of the doctors werethere. They spoke in hushed whispers to each other, as if theyfinally realized that the Republic was listening to everything theysaid.

Atfirst, Seth figured that this was just another manufactured tragedy. Every so often, there would be an explosion on a freighter or at aRepublic facility. It would be blamed on a particular rebel groupthat opposed the Republic. Invariably, this would be a terroristorganization that Seth had never heard of. The commissars would geton the viewscreens and promise retribution. Within a few weeks, theleaders of the rebel group would be captured and the Republic wouldbe safe again.

Sethhad made several attempts to find actual, existing resistance groupson Earth before they made a move and were quickly destroyed by theRepublic. He didn’t believe they existed at all. All of thesetragedies were truly farces, and sometimes Seth wondered if he wasthe only one who saw it.

Thistime was different. Something compelled him to approach theviewscreen that day. He approached the huddled group and peered overtheir shoulders to see what drew their rapt attention.

Therewas a man in a long beige coat standing behind a podium. He was justfinishing up his prepared statement as Seth moved into earshot of theviewscreen.

“…isdamaging the very fabric of existence,”

Aflurry of noise erupted in front of him as every reporter at the newsconference tried to ask a question at once. The man just steppedbackwards and held up his hands, as if there was nothing he could doabout his findings.

Thiswasn’t what Seth expected at all. If this was another so-calledterrorist attack, there wouldn’t even be reporters at theconference. It would all be staged.

Sethturned to a large woman next to him. She was the receptionist forthe nearby physical therapy office. “What’s going on?” heasked. “What is he talking about?”

Thewoman shook her head sadly. “It’s the Heilmann Drive,” shesaid. “They think it’s going to cause the end of the world.”