The Unearthing (53 page)

“Fuck,”

“Basically Colonel, I was ordered to facilitate your theft of a Bug from the Ship, so that the Committee could get their hands on a fully functional sample and begin reverse-engineering it before anyone else did. The US is out of favour with the World Council. The likely candidates for the contract to reverse engineer one of the Bugs will be either Germany, Japan, or Russia.”

“So the Committee had me steal a Bug for the DIA so that the US and Canada would have first shot?”

“The US and Great Britain more likely; Canada’s role on the Committee seems to be more advisory; token.” Bloom shook her head in disgust. She’d been used and she felt like a ten-dollar whore.

“Those goddamn motherfuckers,” Bloom swore, angrily. She stared at her desk, at the console screen where the K-rune reflected back into her eyes. As her anger at being manipulated began to subside, she turned back to Benedict.

“So, why are you telling me all of this?”

Benedict sighed and stretched. “Because,” he said, “You are something of a darling among members of the Committee. You even have a benefactor on the Committee, to whom you owe your current position as commander of Fort Arapaho and the Ship Survey Expedition.”

Bloom was taken aback. “The Cee-Jay-Cee?”

“No,” Benedict replied, “Actually the Canadian Defence Minister: seems he went to the mat to put you where you are,
because
you never let your ethics take a back seat to your orders.”

Bloom sneered. “I knew getting repeatedly court-martialled would pay off eventually.”

“The reason I’m approaching you right now is because aside from my orders from the Committee to help you steal the Bug, the Minister asked me to recruit you to Tier One.”

“Why?”

“Because the World Ship Summit is very likely going to put the Ship and its passengers under military control when it launches for its home base. The Committee’s going to want someone in its hip pocket in the driver’s seat. The Minister wants to make sure that the Committee’s influence is tempered by the Ship’s Commander’s code of honour. More simply put Colonel, you’re being groomed to command the Ship.”

The process of first contact between the Ship and Humanity was complete. The Ship and its technologies and resources were now very much part of the World and the World was now living in a new era. And with the exchange about to take place, Mankind hoped to join the greater commonwealth of worlds and take its place among the stars.

NINETEEN

BOARDING CALL

TRANSCRIPT

INTERACTIVE NEWS NETWORK

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PATH:INN<>HEADLINES>> THE SHIP>> WORLD PREPARES FOR THE LAUNCH OF THE SHIP ><

Good afternoon and welcome to INN. In the two months since the Ship put forth its invitation to the world, the World Ship summit has been working around the clock in preparation for the departure of the Ship and two hundred thousand of our fellow Human Beings.

The Village surrounding the Ship has grown to a community of millions as industries have sprung up to harvest technology and scientific information from the Ship. New residences have been built for the people coming to bid farewell to Earth and board the Ship. Accommodations are also being created for their friends and family who will be brought in for a final farewell with their loved ones before the Ship launches.

As of yet no date has been set for the launch of the Ship, although sources close to the World Ship Summit have been quoted as saying mid-July is the most likely time. The results of the worldwide lottery to determine who will make up the passenger complement of the Ship are being tabulated and notices will be sent out to the two hundred thousand primaries and fifty thousand runners up.

PATH:INN <>THE SHIP >>THE LOTTERY >>SUMMARY ><

In order to determine makeup of the passenger manifest for Operation Shipflight, the World Council has devised a lottery system by which nearly every citizen of the planet would be eligible to become part of the passenger complement, providing they meet physical and psychological guidelines set out by the World Health Organization. Restrictions for individual eligibility are further limited to families of a maximum of five, or single people over the age of fourteen and under the age of seventy.

Because of the size of the world population, all citizens within these qualification ranges are automatically considered to be entered into the lottery. Only those who contact the World Ship Lottery Commission to request disqualification will be removed from the lottery and there is no time limit imposed upon self-disqualification.

Because of the vast size of the Ship and the ability of its habitat to support life, all members of a qualified applicant’s immediate family, regardless of age, are considered part of the applicant’s ticket should they win. Tickets are transferable, by notarized contract.

Certain people are automatically eligible for tickets onto the Ship, including all past and present members of the Ship Survey Expedition and select members of the Laguna Band.

A special category of the lottery has been set up for people in the health services and wellness industries, including nurses, doctors, dentists, optometrists, etc. Health and wellness personnel registered with their local and national associations will be registered in a separate lottery designed to provide the entire population of the Ship with adequate health and wellness coverage.

Similarly, the spiritual needs of the passengers on the Ship will be taken care of through another special lottery designation set up by the Vatican Interfaith Council to ensure that the religious communities of the Ship’s population are properly represented.

As to safety issues such as policing, fire, etc. the World Ship Summit has decided to leave these under the jurisdiction of the Ship’s command crew, to be composed of military personnel who will be selected from a list of qualified volunteers from the Allied World Army and its member nations.

INN<>THE SHIP >>INFORMATION ARCHIVE >>CREW MANIFEST><

SORRY! THIS SPAR IS STILL BEING ACTUALIZED. PLEASE TRY AGAIN LATER.

♦♦♦

Allison McQuire shut down her console’s viewer and selecting music, put it down beside her chair. She needed to stand up. The package had come for her first thing this morning. She’d had the day off and had gotten up early to enjoy a full day of lounging around in her underwear, drinking coffee and smoking up when the door chimes sounded. It was a courier dropping off a package from James.

As a former member of the Ship Survey Expedition, he’d been automatically qualified for a Ticket. He knew he’d be rejected when it came time for the physical; the World Health Organization looked none too favorably on Oil heads. And although he’d been offered what amounted to a personal fortune to sell his Ticket, James wanted her to have it. He still loved her, he’d written, and if she didn’t want the Ticket, she could do with it as she pleased. He’d taken the time to have the necessary notarized forms filled out and the Ticket with her name and information on it was now sitting there before her, printed on thick, embossed and platinum-leafed paper; a hundred thousand security devices to prevent fraud built into it, including sixty interconnected microchips.

The note and the Ticket had been the first contact Allison had had with James in more than two months. Along with everything the Ticket represented for Allison’s future came everything that contact with James represented: the heartache he’d caused, the pain of what she saw as her failure to help him, to save him. She was over him; at least, she thought she was. But the wounds were still too fresh. She pulled a joint from the pack she’d bought that morning and lit it up. She and James hadn’t been together that long; they hadn’t even known each other that long. It wasn’t like her to fall that hard, that fast…but she had and it was over, ended all too soon.

Sad ballads were blasting from the wall console’s speakers, but Allison couldn’t get pulled into the tide of grief the way she wanted; the Ticket kept calling her back as it sat patiently on the coffee table her name engraved on its surface. The Ship.
She
was selected as one of its passengers. She could be one of the people to be aboard; be one of the truly few members of Humanity to leave this small, blue world and do what no one in all of Human history had ever done: leave its cradling solar system behind. The most dreamed-of Human adventure was within her grasp if she wanted it. If she was brave enough; if she dared.

♦♦♦

Dressed in his heaviest sweater with a large mug of coffee steaming in his hand, Michael Andrews stared out at the Ship, listening to its siren call as the morning sky weakened the influence of the Ship’s luminosity on the landscape. It was good to stand here in the chilly morning air, staring at the greatest wonder mankind had ever beheld. It was a sight that he would forever remember, though he knew it was a sight that he would not witness for much longer. Sonia came out from their quarters, approaching him from behind and wrapping an arm around his waist as she came to stand beside him.

“I can’t get you to change your mind, can I?” she asked. He heard the bitter sadness in her voice and had to swallow against the lump in his own throat.

“No more than I could ask you to change yours,” He rasped, gently.

“They’ll need me in there Michael,” She said, “And they’ll need you, too.”

“There are others, equally and better qualified than I,” he said, “Who will be able to fill whatever scientific role they’d bestow upon me. This world is my home, Sonia. I’ve never wanted to leave. I’ve never even been to space other than on jump flights.”

“Michael…” She buried her face in his shoulder, which soon became damp with her tears. She pulled at him, turning him to face her.

“Then ask me to stay,” She begged, “Ask me to stay and I will!” He kissed her and sadly shook his head.

“That I would need to ask tells me you don’t want to,” He said, “And if I did ask and you did stay how long would it be before you came to regret your decision? How long after that before you came to resent me for having you make it?”

“Then come
with
me,” she sobbed.

“I can’t,” he whispered, “I can’t.”

“You won’t!” she snapped, pulling away from him, turning to go.

“Sonia…” She stopped, turning to face him again.

“Sonia, I would be lost in the darkness and stars. I would be lost without the sights and sounds and seasons of this world. This is my
home
. The entire universe is available to me but
here
is where I want to be.” She took his hand in hers, pulling him back towards the shelter.

“Then come,” She said, “Come be with me, while we still have time.”

♦♦♦

Paul Santino sat in the office of the Chief of the Laguna Band Council for the first time in months; but from his perspective he was sitting on the wrong side of the table. Sharon Raven, the former police chief had been elected as head of the Band Council and she sat across from him in the chair that had once been his. She was on her linx and working a console, wrapping up some business before they went for lunch. Santino remembered when not so long ago, he had been sitting there, Chief of the Laguna Band, watching the Professor Mark Echohawk go over photos taken of the tip of a pyramid, unearthed by a couple of teenagers riding around in contraband dune buggies. It had been a different world, then. It had seemed a darker place with so much less hope. In the aftermath of a devastating war almost sixty years gone, people expected Humankind to waste away in the broken world. The Ship had restored hope it seemed, but in many more respects it had instilled chaos and too much of it.

Sharon Raven finished her work on the linx and looked up from the console as she took the device from her ear.

“Thank God that’s out of the way,” She said, smiling, “Well, Mister Santino, I understand that congratulations are in order.” A slight smile touched Santino’s lips, as Chief Raven continued:

“One of the Men Who Discovered God has been asked by the World Ship Summit to be the head of the Ship’s Civilian Authority; it must be an honour to be mayor of the Garden of Eden.” Santino smiled. He’d been the only name on the World Ship Summit’s list to lead the ad-hoc governing council for the passengers of the Ship. They hadn’t even waited for him to confirm that he was indeed going to be on the Ship, though Santino wouldn’t have passed the opportunity to be aboard when it launched.

“That title is going to stay with me for the rest of my life,” He lamented, “Or, at least until I leave Earth.”

“Paul you
earned
that title as part of the Fourth Vatican Council. For all intents and purposes the Ship confirmed the existence of God. The world’s churches and temples are overflowing with worshippers and converts! People are actually beginning to make peace with one another because you all confirmed the validity of the truth of all the world’s religions.”