Dreams among Stars (20 page)

In this moment I would have done anything to get out of this room. To my surprise the Benefactor did not make demands. No he started a conversation.

“
Tell me Helen, do you in fact believe that we are on a space ship right now?” I nodded “Look around. A simple small room you are put in and some sensory deprivation and you nearly lose it. It is so so very easy to fool the senses and have the people believe just about anything.” Sincerely he looked at me “Surely you know Occam’s Razor, if there are different theories explaining a phenomenon, the simpler theory is to be preferred. So what is more likely, that the humankind of one and a half millennium ago with abstruse enthusiasm used momentous means to have this alleged spaceship build, or that we are simply part of an entertainment program?” He indicated towards the side of the screen and quite a number of scenes from olden times science fiction movies and reality shows were being shown.
 

“
You are a sensible person, of course you do want to believe to be part of an important mission, but what do you think is more likely? It is much more logical that we are simply part of a large scale entertainment program.”
 

My thoughts were racing, which reply was the best one to get me out of here?

“
And the repairs on the outer hull?” I heard my own voice. Stupid, stupid Helen. “If all of this is fake, why had your predecessor authorized the repairs? I was out there, the vastness of space is real. And if all of this is so obvious, why has any higher education been banned?” It just came out of me like a waterfall, to provoke like this was moronic, but I just couldn’t help myself. As the Benefactor signaled to someone off-screen with a break signal by moving his finger with a cutting moving along his neck, the screen went black and was covered by the panel
again. And as the white around me tightened its grip I started sobbing. I was pondering on how to manage hurting myself, just to have a means to bring contrast to the white with my own blood, when suddenly all around me monitors swung out to replay the scenes from the movies again, to then purposefully play out the expositions about the real truths in full. There were collapsing domes, revealing movie studios. Virtual realities that faded, as the servers running them were destroyed and many more scenes like this.
 

Then a charismatic man appeared on screen, probably one of the past Benefactors and hel a long speech about why our ship could only be complete fiction. He was actually pretty convincing, but the reasoning had a fatal flaw, normally as soon as someone saw through the lies everything was done and over with, so who would keep such a show running for centuries then?

Possibly humans that only had lived their lives aboard the ship were convinced by this reasoning, but for me who had been witness at the world wide advertisement for the colonization mission and being part of the how the whole of humanity had watched every part of our departure with so much excitement it was beyond belief that all of that had been fictional.

Or had my memory been tampered with? And with the first germs of doubt the door opened and I was being let out.

First stop was a bath, where finally I was allowed to use a toilet and after that was even allowed under guard of a female warden to wash myself. Had I been in the room for only a short time? After all I hadn’t needed a toilet until just now.

I damned my own weakness, for this we hadn’t been prepared. Still I was thankful when I received fresh clothes, a plain brown cloth and with a sad gaze I watched my maintenance dress being carried away. After that I was delivered to a strange room, full with weird items, which probably were on display as trophies. It was a dining room. I was pushed on a chair and so I sat under guard and tried to inconspicuously check out the trophies. Amongst them were were different weapons, a fabber, different parts of sensors, a drone and even a maintenance robot with severed arm. Joy filled me, as I found Marple or what I believed to be Marple. A pair of undamaged data glasses was being decoratively displayed on a wooden head.

As one of my guards went to the door, the other unexpectedly bowed closer and whispered “Did you know that flamingos are pink?” I believe I squealed in surprise, before hastily responding with “Garden gnomes totally freak me out.” So the resistance had infiltrated the Benefactors guards and found me, irrelevant if they recognized me or just saw me as potential new member, this could very well be my way to freedom.

In this moment the door opened and the current Benefactor energetically entered the room. “What a pleasure to finally welcome you properly as my guest. You have no idea on how difficult it was to get to you, but of course it was much more difficult to endure the absence of your company.” The Benefactor was trying hard to be charming and I very throughly pondered my next words.

Besides trying to brainwash me into his beliefs of the nonexistence of the ship he had to have other goals of his own. I doubted that I would be able to fake that the brainwashing had been successful, but it was a fact that I did not want to be put back into that white cell again, so I would offer to help at whatever it was that he desired. Sooner or later a chance to flee would surely present itself, especially with the resistance already having found me.

As yet the Benefactor hadn’t shown his hand, so I kept quiet to not say anything wrong. I surveyed the Benefeactor closely while dinner was being served, he was an elder man with gray hair. It was noticeable that his hair must have been hazel colored once. Much like the provost of the village in which I had met the young boy Mark he wore an unsettling mixture of leather clothing like from a western and a roman white toga. There was bread and a supper being served and greedily I attacked the food, not being sure where the strong hunger stemmed from finally my question was “How long have I been imprisoned?” The Benefactor scrutinizing me answered “Oh you wouldn’t believe it my dear.” “So what, has it been more like a week?” “Oh I keep telling this so often afterward, do think, did you need to do your business even once in this time? It weren’t even full two days yet!” I swallowed hard, this was difficult to believe. “But, but I was so thirsty.” “Isn’t it crazy what the human mind is willing to believe, no?” His gaze was mustering me coldly speaking this words and I dipped a piece of breath, to not get my thoughts derailed. So I was cracked wide open so easily, such a good ally to my friends I thought sarcastically. Slowly I ate my soup, tomatoes had always been to my liking. As I pushed the empty plate away I spread my arms questioningly “But all this effort for what? There must be something you want from me!” “Now that is a fair question. This won’t be a pleasure for you bot more so for me that I do have to offer you my sincere thanks. Literally since centuries we tried to provoke the outer hull tribes to enter war with us. Irregardless how brutally we persecuted their allies from the resistance and even senselessly tormenting the middle deck folks nothing did work. Now you appear and just so they start marching on us, this is brilliant!” Totally shocked and confused I asked “So you are using me to lure them into a trap?” “Oh no, the only important thing is that they seek open confrontation, but the details are so uninteresting.” To the contrary, exactly those details were the interesting part for me and the Benefactor was well aware of that, as I could see in his sardonic smile.

“
So what happens now?” I asked without real desire to hear his response. “Very simply, after we finally get rid of everyone believing in this silly madness with
the space ship, we can start putting an end to all this monkey business. So either you help us, or in twenty five years your successor will.” Tiredly I asked “And until then? Will you keep me imprisoned all that time?” The Benefactor surveyed my face and unexpectedly said “By the way garden gnomes do creep me out too.” At my side the one guard cringed in surprise and grabbed for the sword, but the other soldier already had drawn his weapon and silently said “Oh yes, please do try it!” At which my only ally was being walked off helplessly. Content like a smug cat the Benefactors gaze followed the soldiers. “As you can see your very presence is helpful already, but you could also make yourself useful repairing the treatment plants a bit.” He held up one of the Clarioncallers “Very melodramatic yes, the part with the space ship is nonsense of course, but the technology around us is failing, there I do agree with you.” He signaled to the two soldiers that just entered to take me away and as they rudely dragged me up on my feet I called out “But it is true, we are nearly there.” Behind me I heard him let out an exasperated sigh as if he was fed up with this argument.
 

Fortunately I was not put back into the white room, but into an actually rather comfortable large cell, even with an own toilet, a table and a shelf with some books.

Mostly the books were works by authors from the ship, but also a few earth classics were among them. Back then on earth printed books made from real paper had become a luxury commodity. Of course it was pretty cheap to just print a book for oneself, but elaborate hardcover works had comparable prices like paintings, especially fancy ash trays or about any other piece of art. Yes from a once everyday item they had become artistic expression. Aboard the ship a development into the other direction must have taken place after the technology started failing. When shuffling through some of the books I saw that quite some of them had been handwritten, supporting my assumptions.

Angrily I paced around and stood time and time again before the barred tiny window opening, but there was absolutely nothing of interest to be seen on the outside. I drank a bit water and then tried reading a book. I was completely unable to focus, which didn’t matter as it turned out I had picked a trivial romance novel. Some crude mixture repeating the Romeo and Juliet theme, albeit the Romeo was more like a Zorro and there were substantively more dead people than in the original works. There was no discernible connection to any real events on the ship.

Filled with malcontent I went to bed.

Back on back we stand, grime our enemy attacking relentlessly with literally dirty tricks. Bygone since long are the filters of my basin, so together we improvise.

I slow down the flow so the larger chunks of dirt amass on the ground and my comrades-in-arms screen only as little as possible, so the filters hold for as long as possible. This way we provide an acceptable extent of quality.

Hello? My brothers, I do believe we are not alone anymore!

This had been - interesting. Could my dreams be making a real contact? The regulatory sensor of the treatment plant seemingly had noticed me, was it possible for me to start a dialogue?

A sparse breakfast was provided, only a cup of coffee and a slice of bread with cheese. After breakfast I was walked to one of the four treatment plants under very close guard. The maintenance console nearly completely consisted of red lights. As start I shut down the complete facility, as all pumps had died long ago the water level fell only very slowly. I exclaimed that I would need a working fabber or other means to access replacement parts.

There actually was a fabber in the maintenance room, but it was defective, although its raw material reserves were filled all the way.

Around noon the soldiers delivered a fabber that was actually working. Obviously the danger of the manufacturing possibilities were well known, as the soldiers were accompanied by a small nervous guy, who reminded me of a weasel and was introduced as Gustav the technician. Almost apologetically he explained that he was not much more than an archaeologist, he was able to discern the purpose of the devices from the ancestors, but the controls remained a mystery to him.

Attentively he watched my work, as I had the functioning fabber create replacement parts for the defective fabber, when I was finished repairing the treatment plants fabber he had the other fabber be transported away.

Together we placed filters, sensors and pumps. Replaced drainage, pipes and cabling. Weeks of work laid ahead of us for this plant alone.

So I got to get to know Gustav much better in the next days, sadly he was well aware what kind of power Marple could provide me with. So the first try to talk him into getting me Marple remained the only try at that.

The resistance on the other hand did not cease its attempts to get to me, once there even was a downright onrush on the water treatment plant, but the Benefactor had been informed beforehand it seemed. I only heard the noise of battle and was happy not to see what was going on. Later though the Benefactor had me fetched for a shared meal and bragged about the number of resistance members having been caught by only my mere presence.

When I asked if he had already won the war in the middle decks he frowned and had me sent back to my cell.

One early morning a whack against my cells bars wakened me, as my sleepy gaze embraced the scene playing out before me I was instantly wide awake.

A body streaming with blood laid sprawled out before my cell, it was a woman whose fading gaze fastened on my eyes. “T t aaahk” she gargled and I saw that she held out Marple through the bars to me. Quickly I stepped up to her and grabbed Marple, when her body shuddered from yet another arrow penetrating her side. Hastily I pulled some books to the front and hid Marple behind them, then I stepped to the dead woman and held her hand. Was there a smile on her lips?

It had been nobody I knew, but that made it not any easier, so I sat there sobbing, while the soldiers removed the dead resistance fighter.

In moments like this I rued that I had decided to meddle, as everywhere I went death followed in my footsteps. On this day I scarcely talked with Gustav and I nearly fell from the ladder in the second water treatment plant, which we had just started to work on.

I decided to stop work early, by now Gustav was able to create the treatment plant spares with the fabber on his own. He had a hard time replacing the parts, still the position indicators of the status consoles were helping him, so he was able to continue without me. Another three technicians had been send to speed up things and the pace of repairs had significantly increased.