I set down the letter I wrote to Loretta on her nightstand. She'd already gone to work for the day, writing an opus that only she can create, and wouldn't be back to our bed until the end of the day-cycle. I looked about our small home on the station and let out a sigh. It wouldn't be the last time. She wouldn't have to read my letter.
I walked out of our room into the greater beyond of the only home I've ever known. We'd worked out, Loretta and I, at the gym across the hall from the living quarters, as we did every morning. Gotta stay fit in space. My guest today knows that. He may be the only one in his entire crew who lives it like I do. At least I think he'll be my guest... but I'm getting ahead of myself.
The station air tasted good as it passed through my nose and into my lungs. It always did. Dad told me it was the sweet southern air of home, but he'd have no way of knowing what that home had smelled like. This had been our family's only home for a long time. I nodded as I passed some of my friends. They smiled, but they were tense. Today was a big day and everyone knew it. There was no reason to obfuscate information, no need to hide the choice that I made and the ramifications for the station.
This may be our last day in the solar system.
I stayed to the interior halls of the station as I completed my morning walk-about. Work started when I wanted it to, always had, but there were external forces to contend with today that I had to account for. That was new to me. New to all of us, and it showed. Every face I passed was held in a tense smile. They knew of the decision, hell, most had been in the debates.
They knew the Watchers’ opinion as well as I did. It is too soon. Earth isn't ready. Humanity strayed too far from their way and we'd have to wait to correct course. My opposition says I am naïve and hopelessly optimistic. I am optimistic, but naivety is not in my genetic makeup. The Watchers let it happen as we decided they would: Conditionally.
I get one meeting to prove my point, or to make it, and then the station reacts. We stay and work forward or we leave forever. I don't want to leave forever. The inside halls of the station are winding and precise. There's not a long way to get anywhere, but if you take the wrong turn over and over and over again, you can turn a commute into a walk. I took a turn down a new hallway which would take me right back to the thoroughfare that I had been walking, but it'd add 5 minutes of time interior to the station. I didn't need to be at my post for another few hours. The guest hadn't even left his mother-ship, and his commute to our meeting was much longer.
I didn't want my walk to take me past any windows. I didn't want to see Saturn, the glorious planetary home of the station, with its rings that defied all human scale internal logic. They worked on the scale of mathematics, floating there and dancing their magnificent circular dance above the gaseous planet that we shared. It was the only planetary gravity that I had ever been under the effect of, and in a sense, it was more home to me than Earth ever was or would be. I'd grown up here, generations of my family had grown up here for the past two-hundred or so years since the Watchers brought grandpappy Billiam here. My namesake. He held a special place in my heart. there's plans and there's chance and you have to have both. Billiam was chosen and taken here with naught more than the clothes on his back and he made a life, a glorious life, here, leading to me.
Everyone should get that chance.
The Watchers want that as well.
Does Earth?
I'd walked for about as much as one can walk toward their office on this station without actually hitting it or backtracking. When I arrived, the faces I saw surprised me. The smiles had gone, but the tension remained.
"Mornin' ladies and gents," I said to the faces about me. Security. Something we hadn't needed aboard this station for decades. These people, my friends and neighbors, were armed.
"You sure about this?" said Evangeline. Slung over her shoulder was a holster holding a gun. I wasn't sure what kind of firearms the Watchers provided, being that we're in a very touchy sort of environ, but it was not my place to pick such things. I would not be armed for the meeting. That was not my intention, nor would it get me anywhere. It may help my case in bonding with the man I was to meet, but it would not move us forward.
"I'm as sure as I can be," I said back, realizing the thought had kept me silent for a shade too long. My awkwardness would have to be out of my system before Jack arrived. "Any info on the guest?"
Evangeline nodded and joined me on the last steps into the office. Ahead of us were panels and panels of computing equipment. I have no idea what kind of technology they're comfortable with on earth, well that's a lie, intel tells me what computing equipment humanity has on earth, but I do not know how it feels in the hands, and isn't that the true part to think of? I don't know what their computers feel like in their hands, but I know they made them. That's something. To me, that's something big. We didn't make our technology here on the station. It was a gift. I guess that's something big, too.
"We're almost certain that Johnathan - Jack - Bester boarded in the approach vessel about ten minutes ago," said Evangeline.
"And how long does that give us before Jack is here?"
"Two Hours, give or take his propensity for thrust."
"No way the company lets a man like that sit in charge of the controls,' I said. We'd had dossiers on almost every person aboard the ASRN-FOUNDER corporation vessel that set out for our little station two years ago.
"Then why should we trust him to talk to us?"
That was a good question, one that I went to sleep wondering ever since I got the "landing crew" information sent my way from our researchers. It’s astounding the amount of information simply flying out in the solar system for people to find. I'm certain that the corporations have thought of it, but truly, light beams back and forth, out to everyone seems like a very simple way to communicate. It invites listening, despite whatever cryptography applied to the actual message. And listen, we did.
If they invite listening, maybe it’s intentional? I hope, but that even feels like a hope too blind, as Loretta would put it.
We can't have children, Loretta and I. The doctors and the Watchers did all their tests, but I made sure they didn't tell us whether it was a biologic issue in my makeup or hers. Didn't matter. There were no kids with anyone else for us. Not ever. Loretta and I were for each other and each other alone. But I think about it a lot. I see how much she wanted a little one running around the station with us. I know how much I did.
I think about all those little ones back on the mother planet, back on Earth, all they may be wanting for, all they may need. We can provide that. The Watchers can provide that. They just have to come along. They have to get over themselves and work with us.
"Jack the gun nut?" I asked. I knew the answer before Evangeline replied in the affirmative. There was something about each of the "landing party." They sure liked their old-fashioned science fiction. That twentieth century stuff, like my grandpappy could have read if he had the mind for it before getting picked up and planted here.
Rayguns.
That was the new fancy technology for spacecraft warfare. Company against company. They didn't fight often, but just like their personal information, they sure beamed out their private war room information just as easily read. The whole history of Earth is just dancing outwards from the solar system. Light to be read. I wasn't around there for the signals, but grandpappy could have gotten his favorite television shows out here, just an hour or so after they had broadcast on earth. They’d only have a little more static to 'em.
"What were his instructions again?" I said.
"Ask questions, get answers, return home." replied Evangeline.
"See, sounds like a peaceful mission to me."
"Peaceful enough for a gun?"
"Look at your own shoulder to answer that question. The man knows nothing about us, save for that we're here."
Evangeline nodded at that, but I could see I hadn't won her over. Some people were harder like that, but they weren't impossible.
I turned to my screen and saw the beautiful rings of the planet below for the first time today. They always brought a smile to my face. My teeth weren't perfect, but that was no reason to not show them off, especially with awe beset upon me like this. Who could look at such a thing and not feel so wonderfully small? So insignificant and lucky. We are significant because of the insignificance of our scale. We're so small that we can fight to see such an awe. Humanity did fight for that and succeeded. I was afforded the gift of being born here, but humanity still chose to come here against all odds and reason and see us. They just needed a little push.
That's what started the debates. We weren't supposed to reveal ourselves to humanity. Earth was supposed to work its way towards us. We were the test: can humans survive and thrive with the tools of the Watchers? Sure can. We can be integrated with them, live with them. We have the peaceful streak within us for coordination.
Earth had to work its way there, though.
They weren't doing a great job of it.
I try not to pass judgement. I wasn't raised to do so, even so, it is hard not to see where they went wrong when the right way was gifted to me. It hurts that it was not gifted to all. What I could not abide was the hurt of it being taken away. The Watchers don't believe Earth will correct course. They don't believe in humanity as a whole anymore.
That was the crux of my debate then. They wished for us to join up with them, to leave our orbital home about the ringed planet and abandon our solar system to its fate. Well, I said, if we are to leave them, then we must give them a last chance. Some time to repent and change course. If we, humanity here, did not scare them so much to abandon the experiment, then there was hope for the people closer to Sol, back around the third rock from the sun. Wasn't there?
"It appears he's on the mathematically correct course for docking," said Eugine, a man working the station next to me. "They followed the instructions we gave them."
"And they didn't give Bester any control," said Evangeline.
"You certain?"
"You think he's a man that follows the mathematically best option?"
I nodded at both of them as we looked back up at the screen. There were only hours now, only hours until the fate of humanity -earthborn humanity - was decided.
No pressure.
It hadn't felt like we were on the clock when the two-year journey of the ship now orbiting Saturn, slightly further away from the planet than our station, had left earth. There had been a bidding war amongst the corporations for the right to be the first to visit "the signal." Of course, we'd been the signal. That was the outcome of our debate, a last cry to humanity to come, to speak and to listen. If they never came, then the Watchers received their answer and so did I. we would have left then. But after a bidding war, and I presume an actual war, a conglomerate of corporations banded together to construct a ship for travel out to the gas giant.
Humanity hadn't been out here since the early twenty-first century. Other priorities.
The weight of my conversation pressed down on me. Two hours. I had two hours until I had to convince humanity to change course or be abandoned.
"Anyone need another coffee?" I said, standing up, shaking. I hoped my emotions were hidden, but seeing my compatriots’ faces, I knew they weren't.
"Sure," said Eugine.
"No thanks," said Evangeline. Worry on her face. "You-" she started, but I had already started walking away. It felt terribly rude, but I knew her question and I knew my answer. I wasn't ok.
I wasn't confident like I should be. I thought of the note left on my wife's bedside table. Loretta. My love. My only love in all of this life, greater than humanity, greater than the solar system we call home, greater than any nebulous understanding of home or place in this universe. There was so much to share about our place in this universe. Mr. Bester wouldn't get it, I don't think. I reached the replicator and printed out two cups of coffee, one with an egregious amount of sugar for Eugine. Mr. Bester didn't have to understand. He just had to pass on his information and they had to send another, then another.
The Watchers work a slow game, and I want to play that game with the rest of humanity.
I wonder if they are proud?
I walked back to Eugine, careful not to spill any coffee, gave him his drink, and walked out of the room to the small ready-room next door. It almost appeared like a green room for a theater, some seats, a mirror, and a terminal for my notes. I looked in the mirror.
I hadn't wanted to be too formal, but I wanted to be myself. I wore blue jeans of the sort my grandpappy was brought here wearing, a flannel shirt tucked into them, no belt buckle though, and a bolo tie that that old man, the first of my line to come to the station, actually wore at the time of his "abduction." It was turquoise and carved in the shape of a walrus. For the life of me, I do not know why a Louisiana man in the old United States of America had a bolo tie shaped like a walrus.
But it was his, and it was mine. I wore it for him. History is funny like that, the items we carry forward. I looked at my notes for a moment, preparing the conversation ahead, but I know me. I think you know me a little after this whole description, too. You know I wasn't going to follow a script.
Evangeline walked in with a knock to tell me what the notification on my tablet had already told me.
Jack Bester has docked with the station.
I stood up and went to meet him.
There was a moment here, a moment where I think we had Jack, we had him on board with our ideas even though he didn't know them, there was a singular moment of humanity before the conditioning of his age took over again and we lost him. He had come in a small capsule, not much in the line of controls or range, but enough for one man to investigate a station with a mother-ship safely floating some distance away to watch. The capsule opened and the pressure of the two worlds, ours and his, equalized. For a moment I saw Jack in there, no spacesuit, he was subjected to our environment without warning. I saw him breath in the air, smell the wonderful fresh smell, and for the briefest of instants, I saw the humanity within him. He breathed in the air and a deep part of him remembered the wonder of his home planet, the wonder that was buried under centuries of pollution.
Then his eyes adjusted. He saw me beyond his capsule and I saw his hand tighten against a weapon on his hip.
"Hello there," I said, hoping my accent, whatever it was nowadays, didn't scare him further. "My name is Billiam Robert." I held out a hand for him to shake. Something familiar between both worlds.
He took it. "Jack Bester, representative of the ASRN-FOUNDER conglomerate of earth."
Well, there was the man, not the human I had seen for a moment. The man.
"Would you like to come sit for a coffee?" I said. Jack Bester, man of the company, nodded, and I turned to lead him through the station. This was all part of it. My deep machinations and strategy started and ended with a long walk by the windows to show this man what wonders we have here. I'm not much for strategy.
The man had already seen space, humanity had had space stations for decades now, rich paradises away from the rot and ruin of the planet below, they'd dabbled in lunar colonies, mostly as a base of operations for mining the asteroid belt, but I knew there was something special about Saturn. Jack Bester hadn't been out this far, didn't matter what space stations views were, they were nothing compared to the rings of the great gas giant close up. Plus, the walkabout showed off the scale of our home here. The mother-ship that brought Jack here hadn't been cramped by any means, but it was nothing like the space we had here. A bedroom for every soul and many to spare. I walked him past the green rooms with trees and plants, thriving in their own right and giving us air to breathe. Finally, to keep the tour manageable, I brought him to our meeting room.
"I bet you've got a thousand questions," I started. "Don't worry, partner, we'll get to those, but we've got a few to ask first. Before we sit, though, I want to welcome you to Roswell Memorial Space station. She's a little old thing, in the grand scheme of things, but she's home. Wanna take a seat?"
We'd debated on what the conversation room should be. I didn't want it to be an interrogation, but there was only so much we could do. Comfortable chairs sat on either end of the small cozy room, end tables at their sides for the coffees and a table between, in case we needed to share anything. "Cream or sugar?" I asked.
"Black."
I tried not to think of the curt reply as anything other than a curt reply and turned to the replicator to get our drinks. The walls were lined with mirrors, and I couldn't help but make eye contact with the figures I knew were behind them. I turned to see Jack watching me and had to get in front of him. "Mr. Bester, you must know that we've been watching you for much longer than your short sit in this room.
"Of course."
"What would your guess be?"
"What guess?"
"How long have we been watching you, Jack?"
"Doesn't really matter, does it?"
"Of course it does!" This wasn't going how I wanted it to. I'd left my script behind with the first question. I tried to center myself, taking a moment between breaths to concentrate. Internalize my thoughts, know my feelings, know who I am. I saw Jack Bester before me, A well-built man, his spacesuit was minimal - I don't think it was an environmental suit, just something for his capsule - It was minimal, a burgundy jumpsuit with no pockets, a belt with a few bobs clipped on, and that bright red raygun on his hip. We'd seen those. Weapons of war that I think my grandpappy would still call a firearm, though there was no fire in them anymore. I saw him watching me, Jack, with cold eyes, unreadable eyes. "Curiosity Mr. Bester. Jack, can I call you Jack? I'd like to call you Jack, get to know you. We brought you here for a conversation, of course. Curiosity and the thrill of exploration. Don't those entice you, Jack? The fear of being watched pushed you out here, the wonder of what is beyond, the quest for information and the need to know! Life, my friend, life! That is life. That is humanity. Does it not interest you in the slightest?"
I sat down in a huff. I hadn't even realized I'd stood up with my passionate rant there. That's what it was, a damn rant by a damn fool. Inarticulate in the moment, I wanted to be the most important for humanity. I was trying to save him, Jack, and I was bungling it all.
Jack didn't respond. He was watching me, but without intensity. Curiosity maybe, but it was lazy now. My rant had pushed him away. He didn't need to pay attention, so he wasn't.
"Your clothing carries cameras and instruments of communication on it?" I asked.
That perked him up.
"Good, well Jack, I tried, but brother, I think I shall speak to the greater beyond now."
That got a rise out of him. Still, he didn't speak. What a choice for an ambassador. I continued.
"We've been watching you for a long time. The planet I mean. Don't want you thinking I mean simply Jack Bester and the gun in his holster." His eyes lit up at that. "You know where the design for that little toy came from? My grandpap had one: stamped twentieth century sheet metal and cheap pulp stories designed that little toy sitting on your belt, nothing fancy from either of the corporations you work for now, nothing original under the sun and all that."
"What are you talking about?"
"Getting humanity out from under the sun."
Jack looked back, intrigued again. There was a man under that veneer of machismo, a person. I saw his hand fall to rest at his belt and knew I was right to have written the letter to Loretta. I knew I’d lost the debate. I'd been wrong, but I still had to try, though.
"We've been watched, not just you and I, but earth. There's more out there than our little solar system and the company that fills it. We don't want here Jack. We don't need. Scarcity is a planet problem, not one of the galaxy. There is so much out here that there's nothing to fight over. Is it work? Yes, of course. Our work here on Roswell Station is minimal. We're the test subjects, but there is work to be done and worlds to see and places to explore for humanity. Seas beyond the Atlantic and Pacific, my dear friend, oceans of darkness leading to the most wonderful islands you could ever imagine, and those you can't. And we're stuck here with our competitive heads stuck where no sun shines.
"Scarcity is a matter of scale. Change the scale and the fight changes too. You don't need your raygun to explore, you-"
Jack stood. I hadn't noticed the change in his eyes. The hunger and the sudden interest.
"Take me to them." He said, standing with his hand firmly pressed on the piece of his identity, which I'd called a toy.
"Take me to your leader, you mean?"
Jack unholstered his gun. "You're damn right."
His hand was steady. None of the enthusiasm in the world changed what he had come here to do. He was expendable, a man with a camera on him for more powerful minds to analyze the situation and decide. A man with a gun and a want to prove himself. A man from a world that no longer matched the one I could say my family was from. I was right to leave Loretta the letter. I loved her more than I love the universe, but in a moment of stupidity and hubris, in that debate, I put the universe - humanity - first. What a dumb move. The Watchers would move on. Jack would die at Evangeline or another’s hand. I'd probably die too. Funny how fear doesn't fill my mind now. Not even regret so much. Love and disappointment. That's what it is.
I started to say something and Jack pulled the trigger on his toy.
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-Max