Marie Simone Dorvilie
pressed against the metal bulkhead in the gloom of the cavernous
hold, shivering. Her boss, Chief Engineer Jean Gilbert Dorce,
acted as if each milliamp generated by the ship’s reactor was
a minuscule drop of his own blood, so lighting was kept at a
twilight gloom and air circulation at a whisper. Still, her shivering
wasn’t caused by this; the hold was moist and hot from the press
of bodies around her.
No, she shivered with
fear and delight. Papa Vincente had called, asking that she attend
his weekly town meeting. Why does Papa ask me here? He knows
I hate being in front of people. She glanced over the others
present, pressed in shoulder to shoulder toward the front of
the hold.
Papa had raised her
as his own after mother and father entered creche sleep for the
interstellar voyage to the colony world, Hevre. Her mother was
a xenobiologist and her father a civil engineer, skills of great
value on a colony world, but of marginal use during the voyage.
As a child, Papa would hold her in his arms when she cried for
them.
“Darling Simone, your
mama and papa were chosen from many thousands to help build a
new world. What would the sense be if they arrived at Herve after
twenty-five years in space too old to perform their duties? No
child, they must sleep the long sleep. Then they will wake young
and strong, ready to build a world for you and your children.” And
then he rocked her and sang hymns in deep-voiced Creole.
But Papa Vincente
also was the leader of the colony ship Star of Haiti (he disavowed
fancy titles like captain), and his time spent with her was limited.
But his smile was her sunshine, brightening her days and warming
her heart.
Marie Simone scuffed
the dirt on the floor of the hold with her ship sandal, dirt
taken from the holy ground in the center of their little village
outside of Port au Prince. Across the crowded hold Papa Vincente
sat, surrounded by the other Houngans and the lady Mambas. Marie
Simone hugged herself as she pondered Papa’s summons, then jerked
at the sound of her name being called. Across the hold, Papa
squinted into the gloom.
“Marie Simone! Where
is my darling stepdaughter? Papa is calling.”
The people around
her turned to stare. Then like the Red Sea, the crowd parted
so she stood alone as Papa smiled at her from a high-back wooden
chair. The chair was carved with the many signs and symbols of
the Loa gods. Perched on the back was a battered top hat, Baron
Samedi’s own she was told as a child.
“Ah, there you are
child,” Papa called. “Come closer, these old eyes can not see
plainly in this light.” Papa smiled as only he could, with his
whole face, his joy shining like the sun. Marie Simone basked
in the warm glow even as her gut roiled with doubts. With lowered
gaze, she shuffled down lane created by the crowd.
“Darling child, let
me look at you! You become more beautiful every time I see you.
And wearing the uniform of a ship’s engineer. You done me proud,
little Simone.”
Marie Simone rubbed
her cheek as your face glowed. “Thank you, Papa. I owe it all
to you. What do you need? You know anything I have is yours.”
The old man chuckled
and leaned forward in the ancient chair. “You see?” he said,
glancing around the hold. “I knew she was a good one when I first
saw her as a little bitty thing.”
He sat back and blessed
her with his smile again. “I have need of your talents, child.
Our ship has run out of some computer components. I have contacted
one of the other vessels in the colony fleet, Eye of Odin, and
offered a trade of some foodstuffs and potables. Those Norwegians
have had uncanny luck with their computer equipment, almost no
breakdowns, and do love our yams and banana beer. But I need
you, someone with technical training, on the trip to make sure
they trade fair. Who else but my own darling stepdaughter, and
an engineer to boot!”
“But Papa! Me!” The
butterflies in her gut became glass shards. “I can’t pilot the
shuttle, and I wouldn’t know how to value what’s being offered.” Marie
Simone froze as the look on Papa’s face shifted from a warm smile
to a grimace.
She took a breath
and lowered her gaze. “Yes Papa, if you wish.” The smile was
back when she glanced up.
“Then it is settled.” Papa
gestured to the young man standing next to him. “Roosevelt here
will arrange the trip. You need not worry about piloting, the
shuttle flies itself. I will set the terms of the trade. I just
need you to be sure they do not send junk.” He nodded to Marie
Simone, and she understood she was dismissed.
Only after Papa Vincente
had steered her through school to become the assistant power
systems engineer under Jean Gilbert did she see his darker side.
Papa Vincente also was the colony’s Houngan, high priest of Church
of Vondoun. Papa always asked people to do what he wanted with
kind words and a gentle smile, and Marie Simone just assumed
they complied because they knew they should. This was Papa, after
all. And Papa never argued with anyone who refused.
But as she grew, she
heard whispers about the bad luck that hounded those who thwarted
Papa. The cursed ones would suffer minor setbacks like poor work
assignments, or serious tragedies like injury accidents. Worse,
some simply ceased to be, there one day and gone the next. Frantic
searches of the vessel from stem to stern proved fruitless. The
disappearances were especially frightening because everybody
on board had a micro transmitter implanted under their skin so
their biometric data could be monitored, yet the chips stopped
sending at the same time the people disappeared. Her co-workers
whispered of black magic.
Her boss made a face
and scratched his head when she told him. “Why would Vincente
send an assistant engineer on such a trip? I would think he would
send Roosevelt or Pierre Henry.” Jean Gilbert shrugged. “Well,
he is the captain, so he gets to choose.”
Jean Gilbert turned
back to his control board as he called over his shoulder, “Oh,
have you had any luck tracking down the little sneaks who are
using our wireless system without authorization? They stole another
270 milliamps of power yesterday.”
Marie Simone shook
her head. “I’m having trouble tracking it. It’s probably children
text messaging. One of them must have figured out a way around
our filters.”
“Well, catch them!” Jean
Gilbert said. “That kind of frivolous power consumption will
ruin us.”
She nodded as she
sat at her own computer consol. “I will when I get back from
my trip.” She began shutting down her station. “I just need to
write a subroutine to compare all activity on the network against
the authorization logs.”
“Good!” Jean Gilbert
said. “The sooner, the better.” He stood and walked to the entrance
hatch. “I assume you will be going to temple tonight, to ask
for good luck on your voyage?”
Marie Simone smiled
at the suggestion. Jean Gilbert was a man of science, possessing
deep knowledge of every aspect of Star of Haiti’s systems. Yet
he fervently believed in the divine intervention of the spirit
guardians of Vodoun, especially Papa Legba and Baron Samedi.
She shrugged.
“You need to offer
prayers to the Loa for a safe journey, especially Papa Legba
and the Baron. Those two will guard you if you ask.”
“I suppose it can’t
hurt,” she said. “But I hate dressing like an ignorant peasant
for service.” She finished shutting down her computer and stood. “Why
should the spirits of the ancestors care how I dress?”
“Child, you cannot
approach the Loa with anything but the most humble respect. They
hold our lives in their cupped hands always. With no effort,
they could squash us like bugs.” He clapped his hands together
for emphasis. “Now hurry, you just have time to change.”
Thoom, thoom, thoom,
came the ceaseless monotone of the drum: the spirits call (said
the drum), coming to us, come to us! Marie Simone pressed
against the bulkhead as she felt the thundering beat of the drum
as much as she heard it, felt it in her chest as a pounding heartbeat,
in her arms and legs as a pulsing desire to dance. But she pressed
against the bulkhead instead as others danced, wearing a simple
print dress and bright head scarf; she had no shoes, no jewelry,
none of the electronic gear she normally carried. Thoom, thoom,
thoom, went the drum; come to us, child (it said), we
will love you, we will feed you, we will teach you. The hold
was crowded with crew, each dressed like their slave ancestors
and dancing barefoot to the driving beat of the drum. Emmanuel
from the power section offered her a bottle of rum; dark and
thick like the rum brewed on sugarcane plantations centuries
before. The slaves had always drank rum during the service, to
relax their bodies and open their minds for the Loa. Papa taught
her if you opened yourself to the Loa, the spirits would come,
answer your questions and show you the safe way on the road ahead.
Marie Simone drank
rum that tasted warm and sweet, burning its way down her throat.
She grimaced, stepped away from the bulkhead and joined the dancers
as they circled the hold. Thoom, thoom, thoom, went the drum, dance
for us (it said), call to us and we will come. On
the walls of the hold hung the Veve of the Loa, tapestries embroidered
with the symbols of the individual spirits; the coffin, skull
and top hat of Baron Samedi, the elaborate crucifix of Papa Legba,
the climbing serpent of the creator spirit, Damballah, and many
others. But in the center of the hold stood the pillar of the
Loa, carried from the sacred grove back in Haiti. It was studded
with hundreds of wanga, objects both ordinary and exotic. Bottle
caps, bits of cloth, coins and sacred medallions; each item had
been touched by one of the Loa over the centuries and now held
a bit of the spirit’s presence. Marie Simone and the others shuffled
and danced around the pillar, passing close but never touching
the magic wanga covering the sacred pillar. Sweat dripped down
Marie Simone’s arms and legs as the air grew thick with the hot
bodies and moist breathe of the worshipers.
Across the hold, Hongoun
Daniel began to chant as he pounded the drum. “Papa Legba, come
to us! Papa Legba, show us the way to the other world! Papa Legba,
bring the spirits to us so we may be blessed and taught!” Thoom,
thoom, thoom, went the drum, come, come, come! Mamba Alexa
joined in with a high-pitched shriek as the pulse of the drum
beat increased. The rum, the heat and the pulsing drumbeat seized
Marie Simone, driving her to jump and spin wildly. The others
dancers shouted and stared as she flailed her arms and legs wildly.
Suddenly, Marie Simone
was watching herself dance and spin around the pillar from above;
a dark presence stood behind her. Below she heard herself shriek
above the noise, “Baron!” All around her stopped and backed away,
leaving her standing alone by the pillar. Her hands fell to her
side and her head lolled back. “Baron!” The dark presence grasped
her shoulders with an iron grip as it hissed into her ear. She
struggled to follow the words, she knew it was vital, but the
voice was like broken glass rattling down a tin roof as the words
flitted away from her like butterflies in the wind.
Below, the others
in the hold were moaning as Marie Simone swayed and shouted, “Baron!” Many
bolted out the hatch. “Baron!” The dark presence chuckled, laughter
that cut her like knives. Then it released its grip and Marie
Simone was standing on the dirt floor of the hold as the ground
rushed up. “Baron!” She stared at the pillar as her vision faded.
Marie Simone awoke
in the infirmary to find Jean Gilbert sitting at her bedside.
He smiled as she rubbed her forehead.
“Good!” he said. “You’re
back. Dr. Roget says you may leave as soon as you feel ready.
You know your visit with Baron Samedi caused quite a stir. The
Lord of the Dead rarely comes to anyone who is not at the edge
of his realm.” Jean Gilbert leaned close. “What did he say?”
Marie Simone sat up
as the voice of the dark presence rang through her mind again.
The words echoed as if spoken in a cave so only bits were clear.
“He told me now was
not my time. I must go on my journey, but first I must seek out
magic wanga for protection. Others of the Loa still need me.” Chills
ran through her. Is death so close?
The chief engineer
sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “The journey is
clear enough, you will be shuttling to the Eye of Odin. But magic
wanga? There are charms for protection. Did he say what kind
you needed?”
She shook her head
and hugged herself. “No, but he was clear I must have them or
die.”
Jean Gilbert sat back
and pulled at his lower lip, then nodded. “If the Baron says
you must have charms, they will come.” He grinned suddenly and
pulled a medal on a chain from under his shirt. “I bet this is
one, my Saint Christopher medal. The Baron knew we would talk.
Saint Christopher is the patron saint of travelers.” He looped
it around her neck.
“I thought the Pope
had taken away Christopher’s sainthood.” Marie Simone examined
the medal.
“Perhaps the Pope
does not like Saint Christopher anymore, but Papa Legba and the
Loa think he is a fine fellow. St. Christopher is the best protector
for a traveler like yourself. But the Baron talked of charms,
not just one charm, yes? Others must be coming to you.”
Jean Gilbert stood. “Oh,
Vincente asked that I tell you he put off your trip to the Norwegians
one day, but you will be leaving after that. Rest up tomorrow,
I will handle your duties.”
“Ms. Dorvilie, you’re
late!” Roosevelt, the shuttle engineer, took her arm and hurried
her across the shuttle hanger. “Papa Vincente wanted you on your
way to the Eye of Odin by 1200 hours and it’s already 1215 hours.
I’ve rescheduled launch for 1230 hours, so you must hurry.”
“Wait!” Marie Simone
ran beside the tall engineer. “I don’t know anything about operating
the shuttle. You’ll have to delay the launch.”
“Nonsense! The shuttle
flies itself, you’re just a passenger.” He halted beside a narrow
stall with curtain and handed her a package. “You can get into
the travel suit and diaper in there. I’ll tell you what you need
to know while you’re changing.”
Marie Simone made
a face but took the package. It contained an adult diaper, a
paper jumpsuit and slippers. Because of weight and economy considerations,
the shuttle wasn’t equipped with a bathroom. It was intended
only for short intership hops amongst the seven vessels of the
colony fleet. As the trip to the Eye of Odin would take 12 hours,
Marie Simone had little choice.
Roosevelt slide a
paper bag under the curtain. “Here, keep your uniform in this
until you get there. Now this is all you need to know.” She stripped
off her uniform as he talked.
“The Lord Nelson is
just an inter-ship shuttle, right? That means it’s a single-hulled,
airtight sphere with an air supply, an operations computer and
communication gear. It does not have a rocket engine, just small
thrusters for maneuvering. When I launch you, the Lord Nelson
will have sufficient velocity and vector to reach at the Eye
of Odin on schedule. I set your course when I launch you. It’s
really rather boring for the passengers. Most people bring reading
material or sleep.”
“Damn!” Marie Simone
said. “I left my laptop back in my cabin. Can I…”
“Too late!” Roosevelt
said. “You leave in 10 minutes. Now hurry up, I still have to
strap you in and run the pre-launch checklist.”
Marie Simone stowed
her uniform in the satchel. She wore the St. Christopher medal
around her neck, and had a four leaf clover from the hydroponics
garden. When she considered them, she felt a little silly. How
can these help in deep space? She tucked both under her paper
jumpsuit against her heart where Roosevelt would not see them.
As she strapped herself
in, she examined the sparse controls as Roosevelt explained them.
The communication system was a small box attached to the bulkhead
near her right shoulder. You pressed the red button and spoke.
The computer was a flat screen next to the communicator. All
input was made on the touch-screen. The maneuvering thrusters
were operated by a joystick built into the right arm rest of
her couch, but Roosevelt advised that she wouldn’t be able to
change the shuttles course. “The onboard computer will only let
you turn the shuttle on its axis unless I give you the right
codes. You could get yourself in trouble otherwise, maybe even
push yourself off course.”
After checking her
safety belts, Roosevelt said, “I’ve already worked out your launch
calculation. It’s just like firing a bullet from a gun. All the
aiming is done here.” He gestured to the heavy porthole, a meter
across, directly above her head. “Relax and enjoy the trip. The
view is glorious!”
Roosevelt stood and
handed her a stick of gum. Marie Simone just stared.
“Thank you, but I
don’t chew gum.”
“Girl, don’t you know
anything about the history of spaceflight? The crazy white men
who took the first flights into space started this tradition.
The flight engineers would always give them a stick of gum before
they launched. It helped keep the pressure in the astronaut’s
ears equalized. This is part of the rituals for space flight.
Now take it, you don’t buck tradition.”
Marie Simone took
the gum and popped it into her mouth. “If I must, but I think
it’s silly.” Roosevelt stepped out and closed the hatch.
The shuttle bay was
on the outer edge of the rotating cylinder of the Star of Haiti.
Launching the shuttle involved little more than opening the outer
hatch and giving the shuttle a gentle electromagnetic push. Marie
Simone found it anticlimactic. She felt a slight bump as the
shuttle slid along its launch rails and out the airlock. Immediately,
she was weightless. As Roosevelt had explained, his main task
was timing the release so the shuttle was vectoring to the Eye
of Odin.
Marie Simone spun
Lord Nelson so she could watch the Star of Haiti recede. The
pride she felt at the sight of the interstellar vessel gave her
chills. Even in the faint starlight of interstellar space, the
ship shown. The hull had a high albedo to protect against the
launch laser, and to improve the vessels’ visibility to observers
on Earth. Slowly, majestically, the ship turned below her. Even
though she had studied the ship’s schematics for years in school,
Marie Simone wasn’t able to identify what section she was looking
at. Only when the ship’s name and registry numbers rolled in
the view did she have a landmark to work from. Time passed, and
the Star of Haiti receded until she could see the ship, from
end to end, in the porthole. When the view lost its wonder, she
spun Lord Nelson until she had the Eye of Odin centered in the
porthole, little more than a white speck among the pinpoint stars.
She watched it grow slowly. In time, she dimmed the lights and
closed her eyes.
Marie Simone jerked
awake at the sound of a wavering alarm. Flashing words flowed
across the computer screen, “Pressure alarm—air pressure in the
reserve tank is falling rapidly! Air leak in the primary hull
detected. Time to loss of atmosphere is 25 minutes.” She felt
the spasm in her gut as the words on the screen sunk in. She
glanced at the Eye of Odin in the porthole, now as large as her
thumb viewed at arms length. She was still hours away. She spun
Lord Nelson around. The Star of Haiti was perhaps marginally
bigger. It didn’t matter, the shuttle didn’t have propulsion
to go back.
With trembling fingers,
she pressed the communicator button. “Star of Haiti, this is
Ms. Dorvilie onboard the Lord Nelson. I have to declare an emergency.
I’m losing air pressure. Can you send a rescue vessel?” Marie
Simone began to pant as the minutes ticked by. Nothing! No answer,
no signal.
She pressed the red
button again. “Star of Haiti, do you hear me?” The communication
box remained inert, silent.
She spun Lord Nelson
around until she could see the Eye of Odin in the porthole. “Eye
of Odin, are you receiving me? I have an emergency! Can anyone
hear me?” As time ticked by second by second, precious moments
of her limited air, Marie Simone realized she was gripping the
arms of the crash couch so tight her arms were shaking.
Damn! I don’t have
the velocity to get to the Eye of Odin before I run out of
air. When she glanced at the computer screen, the time
to vacuum was ticking below 15 minutes. She groaned and hugged
herself. No! Get a grip on yourself. There has to be an
answer. She remembered the words of the dark presence and
almost laughed. A lot of good your magic wanga have done
me, Baron. Is St. Christopher going to fly by and plug the
leak with his finger? Hell, where is the leak?
She looked about frantically,
then noticed a faint whistling. She was out of her harness in
an instant and followed the noise. Floating weightless, she pulled
herself around the edge of the porthole. And there it was! The
hole was barely larger in diameter of a 10 gauge wire, but that
was all it took to create this crisis. She saw the wrongness
of it immediately. It wasn’t a crack caused by metal failure
or a puncture. It was a tiny hole drilled neatly through the
hull. She shook her head. Not now, worry about how this happened
later. Now I need to plug it! She remembered a story she
had read as a teenager written by Isaac Asimov. Two men got trapped
in a construction tunnel on the moon when it sprang a leak. They
had no pressure suits or tools, so they used their own bodies,
one after the other, to block the leak. The only problem was
the vacuum of space caused them to hemorrhage where their skin
blocked the hole. Marie Simone glanced at the palm of her hand
and shivered. Yes, but they survived.
The St. Christopher
medal drifted out from underneath her jumpsuit and bumped her
chin. She started to push it back and then pulled it up in front
of her eyes. It’s wide enough and thick enough to patch the
hole, so how do I attach it? The answer came as soon as she
remembered why she had the medal. Baron Samedi said I would
need charms. She grinned and scooped the gum out of her cheek
with a finger. After flattening the gum across the back of the
medal, she took a deep breath and pressed the makeshift patch
over the hole. This will never work. The gum will be sucked
out the hole. Indeed, she could hear whistling as the sticky
wad was sucked through the hole. But then the whistling grew
quieter and quieter. When she touched the St. Christopher medal,
her finger stuck! It was cold, freezing. And then she sighed
with relief. The cold vacuum wasn’t just sucking the gum out
the hole, it was drawing the heat out as well, transforming the
gum from warm, viscous wad into hard, frozen chunk. More important,
it had sealed the St. Christopher medal to the hull.
She pushed herself
back to the computer screen where print flowed across the screen. “Air
loss has ceased. Air reserves reduced to 17 hours. Vessel will
require immediate maintenance.” Marie Simone pulled herself back
into the flight couch and began strapping herself in. She glanced
at the St. Christopher medal stuck to the hull, and then at the
inert communication box. Why would someone want me dead? That
was what the Baron warned of, that now isn’t my time. But that
doesn’t mean they won’t try again. She spent the rest of
the voyage working it out.
When she arrived back
at the Star of Haiti, Marie Simone bolted past Roosevelt and
ran to the engineering section without stopping. After she locked
herself in, she checked her e-mail. She sobbed as she read the
announcement she knew she would find. Jean Gilbert had disappeared
while she was away. The ship-wide search was still ongoing, but
he had simply disappeared. Most important, his microchip had
cut off, leaving his location unknown. When she pulled up the
wireless systems program, she found the rogue software exactly
where she expected to find it.
She felt a cold knot
of fury simmer through her as she studied the rogue software.
She knew how they did it now, and that told her who. Now to deal
with them. She recorded a brief message addressed to the entire
crew and sent it out. No one would misunderstand when they received
it.
Papa arrived at the
outer hatch within minutes, banging and shouting her name. She
let him in and sealed the hatch behind him.
“Child, what have
you done? They have all gone mad! The crew grabbed them and beat
them, Roosevelt, Gilbert and Lindsay. Then they cycled them to
space through an airlock. All because of the message you sent.
Why?”
She clenched her fists. “How
could I? How could you? I was like your own flesh and blood,
and you would have killed me!” She slapped him when he opened
his mouth to protest.
“Don’t speak, you’ll
just lie. I found your dirty little program, the one that lets
you hack into everyone’s microchip. What are you doing? Tracking
everyone? Spying on their conversations? I can even make it speak
to them, put voices in their head. That’s something even you
didn’t think of. That’s how I sent out the message, warning everyone.”
The old man slumped
into a chair and covered his face with his hands. “I never meant
to harm anyone. I can prove it. The ones who are missing, even
Jean Gilbert, are safe. We put them into creche sleep and changed
the ID codes on their microchips. They will awaken when we arrive
at Hevre.”
“But why, Papa? You
are the mission leader. What more could you want?”
“You don’t understand.
Yes, I am the mission leader, but there are many who would take
that away from me. They disagree with my decisions, they argue
every point. Several of them, the ones I made disappear, were
planning on forcing me to resign. I learned that, when I listened
to them conspiring together.” He set up suddenly and glared.
“It’s not fair! All
of you will arrive at Hevre young and strong so you can build
a new life, a new world. I will be a feeble old man by that time.” He
swept his arms wide, encompassing the vessel. “This is my life!
The new world is just a dream that I will never take part in.
My life, my dream, is the Star of Haiti, and those thousands
of sleeping people in my care. Is that so terrible? Living my
dream so you all can have yours?”
He slumped back into
the chair as his gaze drifted to the floor. “But now that’s gone.
Soon they will come for me and make me breathe the vacuum. Isn’t
that what you wanted?”
Maybe that is what
you deserve, Papa. After all, that’s what you would have done
to me. Then she drew a deep, trembling breath. She remembered
his smile, the sunshine of her days. That he had cared for
her and guided her, loved her. How he could be all this, and
then coldly plan her death was a mystery. But can I do the
same? The answer was obvious once she considered it.
The log of the
Star of Haiti recorded that the mission Captain, Vincente Durand,
was replaced by his step-daughter, Marie Simone Dorvilie, shortly
after the Seven Sisters reached midpoint in 2175. For unspecified
health reasons, Captain Durand was placed in creche sleep for
the remainder of the mission. Because of his advanced age,
he was not revived until a decade after the colony was founded.
He lived out the remainder of his years with Captain Dorvilie
and her husband on Herve.
