Читать книгу Star Map - Fabienne Gschwind - Страница 6

So what kind of people were on board?

Aboard mapping ships, the past of crew members was unimportant, and no one would ever ask the other to reveal it unless he or she wanted to. But Jay's story was common knowledge.

His real name was Johann Jeremias Joshua Shakler. His parents had been well-meaning and had given him many biblical names. But even as a child, Jay knew exactly what he wanted to be, a member of the Hades Troop. The Hades Troop was a special military command since the 23rd century. There was no longer a normal army on Earth, but if there was to be an invasion or other attack on Earth, well-equipped and well-prepared soldiers were needed. And the Hades Troop was one such task force.

Jay was magically drawn to all things military, reading survival books like other kids reading comic books, and attending martial arts classes at an early age. At sixteen, he applied for the Hades entrance test, but before he could even take the fitness test, he was given a brain scan. The scan revealed that Jay was not at all fit to be a soldier. He allegedly had an inferiority complex and was thought to be reluctant to follow orders, preferring to command himself.

He was also rejected by the police. The muscular man, who looked and moved like a real professional soldier and spent half his life training martial arts to be part of a hit squad, didn't fit the job description of the modern police officer.

But the professional psychologist Jay visited saved his career; she suggested he become a mountain rescuer. After all, there were enough tourists risking their necks in the mountain’s day in and day out. And in such a profession, you need strong and brave people. Jay first trained as a nurse and paramedic, and shortly thereafter flew his first helicopter mountain missions. After two years, he received an invitation to help on a subspace ambulance ship.

Subspace was also accessible to normal people, and adventurous people who couldn't get an adrenaline rush from normal sailing or mountaineering eventually joined subspace races. Of course, there were also countless luxury yachts and private spaceships. Rescue missions were the order of the day. Jay got to sit in the pilot's seat and steer the ambulance for 10 minutes. It was a moment that changed his life. Now he finally knew what he wanted: subspace pilot! He quit his job and continued his training. With the pilot goggles showing him the cartography map and the joystick in his hand, he felt like an adventurer. He seemed to have a natural talent for getting the ambulance ship into the perfect current and quickly targeting the casualty vessel.

At the age of 25, he was named Subspace Pilot of the Year.

Two weeks after receiving the award, his life changed, as did the lives of many others. It was the year 2390 when an alien spacecraft suddenly emerged from subspace at about the same altitude as Mars. It sped past the moon's orbit and splashed into the ocean near the Philippines. Then it surfaced and activated its weapons, a kind of diffuse microwave radiation that boiled the brain matter. The alien ship fired all its weapons, several thousand people died and many more survived with brain damage. After three hydrogen bombs, the attack was finally silenced.

Complete chaos reigned for days, and the mothballed space fleet was hastily brought out. However, for cost reasons, the pilots and officers of the fleet had never flown the combat spaceships but had only worked in a simulation environment.

It must be mentioned here that the simulation environments were as real as possible. The 3D exoskeletons the trainees inaccurately simulated all movements and touches, light brain stimulation contributed to the trainees almost believing it was real, but only almost.

In the meantime, two more alien spaceships had appeared on course for Earth.

Time was of the essence!

The fleet quickly sought the most experienced pilots to man their ships. So, Jay suddenly found himself as chief pilot aboard the flagship. He, who had never been considered for a military career.

He was so happy that even a fight with an alien spaceship did not scare him. He was full of adrenaline and couldn't wait to fight and protect the Earth. The battle did not last long, because the alien ships suddenly accelerated and were in Earth orbit earlier than planned. The battle was a mess.

The aliens activated their weapons, and two destroyer crews died when their brains exploded. Jay's ship was partially hit and half died. Jay himself had suffered a brain hemorrhage, he clung to his chair and in his delusion, he was the captain and had to stop the alien ship. From his point of view, everything was clear, despite the pain, he crawled to the weapons officer's console and wanted to fire the missiles. But the ship refused; someone had hacked it. Then someone attacked him, but Jay was a martial arts expert. With two kicks, he brought the attacker to the ground and kept typing on the console until he could finally fire the missiles. On the screen, he saw the alien spaceship explode into a fireball. Then he passed out.

Only when he awoke from the artificial coma after six months did he learn what had really happened. The alien spaceships had immediately stopped their attack when another destroyer fired at them. Immediately, they dived into subspace and fled.

Jay's action took place only 30 minutes after the attack. On the ship's camera, a wavering Jay could be seen running through the bridge, ordering the other wounded to fire on the alien ship immediately. When no one responded, he manipulated the weapons console, but he aimed not at an alien ship, but at the Phalanx, which was generating power. The young weapons officer recognized this and tried to stop him. Jay broke her neck with a kick. He then managed to override the ship's safety mechanisms and fire the missiles.

In doing so, he cut the power supply to Earth in half.

Prices rose dramatically, there were shortages everywhere, until finally, the replacement fusion plants came online.

Johann Jeremias Shakler was cursed everywhere, only the fleet held back. In fact, a loophole in the software had ensured that Jay gained access in the first place. He wasn't charged with murder either; the weapons officer had suffered a severe brain hemorrhage and, according to pathologists, would have died a few minutes later anyway.

But the height of irony was when it was discovered that the alien weapons were not weapons, but a radio message.

The message was something like this, "We come in peace, we are peaceful explorers. We mean you no harm, we just want to empty our latrines and fill our water tanks."

So, Earth would have been just a cosmic toilet…

And so the Aliens got their nickname: Outhouse-Aliens!

Jonathan was cleared of all blame by the fleet. But that didn't help. He felt that all of humanity hated him. Changing his name didn't help either. Constant vituperative messages filled his phone, and his family turned away and moved away. He tried to kill himself, but not seriously enough. He didn't really want to die! And then he was offered the solution: he hired on at StarMap Ltd. There, a subspace pilot was always welcome, and he was offered the position of "captain," or in this case, ship manager.

This was the opportunity to escape from humanity and its injustice.

When he returned after the first ten-year mission, he felt no need to settle anywhere and immediately signed up for the mission with the Abhysal.

For Milo, there was no particularly tragic story. Milo had a rare disease; in centuries past, it might have been mistakenly classified as savant syndrome. But with modern medicine and the brain scan, much more was now known: Milo's brain was aligned with subspace. He felt all vibrations and impulses. Unfortunately, even modern medicine had no solution at hand to heal him, but this was not necessary. Neither his parents nor the society found it necessary that people should follow a social scheme. He attended a special school, where he received special support. Everything was done so that Milo could live his talent and preferences and have a fullfied life. The most important thing for Milo was subspace. In addition to his ability to sense subspace, he also had a genius-like mathematical and physical talent, and before his twenty years Milo had become a world-renowned subspace expert. Special care robots helped him in his daily life, because he could not do it himself, he also had trouble getting involved with other people. Dealing with many people irritated him, made him angry and unfocused. He preferred to live alone, or within a family structure. Since he was magically attracted to subspace, it had been a natural decision to work at StarMap and dealing with a small crew that was almost like his family was also absolutely ideal for him. His terms of employment were simple: He had to follow the orders of the ship's manager unconditionally and navigate the spaceship with artificial intelligence as safely as possible through subspace. In return, he was allowed to use as much free time for his research as he wanted, and also to access all sensor data. Of course, he was also allowed to publish his discoveries.

Back from his first ten-year mission, he brought back 1000 pages of groundbreaking subspace observations and also a new theory for calculating discontinuity in multidimensional form. He became a pop star among subspace physicists and toured the united planets with his family giving lectures and publishing his findings. Here he also discovered that he liked to share his knowledge. But unfortunately, his lectures were completely chaotic and far from organized. He wrote formulas on the old-fashioned chalkboard and often began to stutter so that no one understood him. Thus, his lectures were usually poorly attended, and the scientific community focused mainly on his written work. Milo could have easily imagined himself teaching and doing research at a university. But no one wanted to offer a chair to this disorganized genius. This made Milo very sad, and living with many people made him irritable and he could hardly concentrate. So, he asked StarMap if he could participate in a mission again. StarMap, of course, was very enthusiastic, because in two years the great Abhysal mission would begin. To keep him happy until then, he was given an office and a small apartment at StarMap headquarters and allowed to work through all the raw subspace data collected by the mapping ships.

Milo missed being in subspace himself and couldn't wait for the Abhysal mission to begin.

Lexaly was a special case; no one knew exactly why she had joined StarMap. In any case, she didn't seem to be adventurous, and a tragic disaster like Jay's could not be accounted for. She claimed only to want to make money and to love subspace. She was a computer scientist and had discovered AI programming while in college. AI programming was the most difficult thing there was, and programming only small parts required thousands of man-hours. That's why the data interface was developed. It was implanted in the brainstem, and programmers could work directly in the AI. To do this, one had to be very conscientious, perfectionist, and able to concentrate for hours. Of course, you had to be able to program excellently in advance, otherwise, you had no chance with the complicated AI programming language. Lex met all the requirements. She was always introspective, very precise in all her work, also very calm and focused. Most people thought she was shy and timid. But in reality, she just liked to work alone and found computer programs more interesting than other people. But in the third year of her training as an AI programmer, disaster strikes.

She was at the AI headquarters in Marrakesh and connected with her implant to the AI chair as usual. Conscientiously, she studied the changes she was seeing in the hospital AI at a hospital in Delhi. The new fully automated premature infant unit would open soon, and she needed to make some final adjustments. Routine work. In fact, it wasn't her project, but that of Betty, her supervisor, who was on sick leave. But the work was so simple that the programming company decided to have an apprentice do it. The window of opportunity opened and Lex contacted the foreign AI. She worked diligently for two hours, with only one correction giving her trouble. Was she programming correctly? Should she call the supervisor? She was at odds with herself. The window would close soon, and if she delayed and the AI wasn't ready in time, the company would have to pay fines. It would also negatively affect her evaluation if she couldn't do such a simple routine job on her own. Failure was the worst thing Lex could imagine. So, she decided to take a few more minutes and retrace the steps. When she looked at the code again, it looked perfectly fine, and Lex calmed down. She finished the programming and conscientiously wrote her log before finishing her shift.

The horror followed three months later. A newspaper article said 17 infants had died in the newly opened premature infant unit. The fault was a misprogrammed infusion pump. Lex still had all the program codes in her head. She had made the mistake, now she knew: She had made a comma error and the infusion pump had dosed incorrectly. In a panic, Lex waited the next few days for the police to arrest her. But nothing happened. When she reread the newspaper, it turned out that the manufacturer of the infusion pumps had been charged because a pump had actually made a mistake.

Lex was paralyzed; someone would find out. Someone would see that the AI programming was wrong! By the time of next month's brain scan at the latest, everyone would know that she was responsible for a terrible accident!

But an accident rarely came alone; her twin sister died in an accident just two days later. Lex fell into a deep depression, not only the death of her sister but especially the death of the newborns weighed on her, 17 innocent children had died because of her fault. The brain scan showed Lex's deep disruption, and everyone believed it was the death of her beloved sister.

The AI company offered her time off to grieve. As if in a trance, Lex booked a grief workshop. It wasn't until she stayed overnight in an old convent that she realized she had booked time off with nuns.

But the months there did her good. Religion had been completely forgotten in the modern world, and it was the first time Lex had heard of a God. But she soon found comfort in faith, and one morning while praying in the old church, she realized what she had to do. She had to atone for her guilt! Her confessor listened to her concerns without judgment and helped Lex find a solution. Lex knew exactly what she had to do, she would spend her life as a kind of emeritus. She was going to do something good for humanity. She would join StarMap and use her skills to contribute to the successful completion of missions. In seclusion on the spaceship, she would have all the time in the world to pray for the lost souls.

She never told anyone about her plans. It was clear to her that her plan would sound completely crazy to an outsider.

With fresh courage, she completed her training and hired on at StarMap. She almost expected the police to be waiting for her when she returned from her first ten-year mission. But no one noticed the AI error, and in the meantime, the hospital AI had been replaced. So, there was no longer any evidence of Lex's "crime." But Lex judged that God had cleared up some of her guilt and wanted to save her from the shame of an arrest. She felt vindicated in her actions and immediately signed on again for the Abhysal mission.

After her first mission, no one from her family understood why she wanted to fly away again. But you could see how happy and content she was, and her family let her go again.

Joe was a classic adventurer, as were most of the people who joined StarMap. In her youth, she had participated in both sailing races and subspace rallies, and could never get enough of the adrenaline rush. But her hobbies were expensive, as a subspace racing ship costs several years' salary, so she signed on as a machinist on subspace cruisers early on. But her earnings weren't that high, and vacation days were never enough for her planned adventures. So, she decided to work for StarMap for ten years. That would earn her enough money to sail or do subspace rallies for the rest of her life.

Her first StarMap mission failed completely. Two monster waves rolled over the ship, and they were stuck on a reef for two years after that. Joe was the only one who had experience as a pilot in uncharted subspace. So, she was sent off in the small shuttle because everyone had lost hope that the rescue ships would find them. It took her six months to fight her way through subspace to the nearest road. But finally, they were all rescued.

After such an adventure, all the subspace rallies and sailing trips seemed boring, and Joe simply decided to go on another mission. After all, discovering subspace was probably one of the last adventures one could have as a human.

So, the small wiry, and daredevil machinist came aboard the Abhysal.

Nicolai, or simply called Nemo, also had a tragic story behind him. His first brain-scan at the age of eight certified severe pedophilic traits. A shock for the family and lack of understanding for Nicolai, who was taken out of public school and had to attend a special school.

The brain scans a year later and two years later still showed a severe pedophilic disorder, and several neurological reports said it was only a matter of time before this dangerous streak would breakthrough and he would commit his first sex crime.

At the age of 13, Nicolai could do statistics better than any math student. Time and again, he told doctors, judges, and psychiatrists that he was a false positive. The brain scan had not worked on him, he said, and he was one of ten people worldwide to have been falsely tested. But everyone just smiled mildly.

His fate was predetermined, at the age of 16, he was to be relegated to the "plastic waste team". There were all those whom the brain scan classified as a danger, but without ever having committed a crime. They lived in a luxury resort on the Kerguelen Islands, from where they cleaned Antarctica of thousands of tons of plastic waste produced by mankind in the 20th and 21st centuries.

That same year, he was flown there for summer vacation. The people were all nice and he had a chance to talk to the dozens of men who had also been banished for having a pedophilic streak. They all, but really all, affirmed that they were innocent and would not hurt anyone. They all claimed that the brain scan had not worked and that they had tested falsely positive.

Nicolai was horrified.

Barely back, he had been given an ankle bracelet and had become accustomed to making a wide berth at every kindergarten and school. He always looked around in a hurry to avoid getting too close to a child. His family could not bear his situation and moved to a farm in the Carpathians. Through correspondence courses, Nicolai completed his compulsory schooling and otherwise spent time with his two dogs and horse. He hardly left the farm and avoided other houses or villages like the plague. The idea that he would spend the next 100 years of his adult life living on a deserted island collecting plastic waste was so absurd as to be merely surreal. But he could count on the support of his family. Everyone was feverishly searching for a way out of exile. And they found it.

StarMap promised the police to take care of Nicolai in the future. From now on, he will only be in StarMap spaceships or at the company's headquarters on special occasions. If he had to leave the premises for unknown reasons, the police would be contacted immediately.

Thus, on his sixteenth birthday, Nicolai was picked up by StarMap to be taken to the training spaceship. In the confined space of the ship, Nicolai felt freer than ever before. The other adult crew members didn't care about his possibly pedophilic streak, and he quickly became a competent and reliable ship's engineer.

He started a video blog, always posting about life in subspace and all sorts of technological aspects. He also wrote children's stories, which were very popular on Earth.

After four missions and 42 years in subspace, Nemo, as everyone called him, was a living legend and the longest-serving subspace veteran. Two generations had grown up with his stories and adventures. The brain scan was officially deemed "false positive," and Nemo was allowed to return to Earth.

But Nemo would hear no more of it; deep inside him hummed a hatred of humanity, and he vowed never to set foot on Earth again. Just like his namesake from the novel by Jules Verne. In any case, he knew nothing but subspace and outer space, and as soon as he was on a planet, he felt land sick.

So, it was clear to him that he would work for StarMap for the rest of his life.

The money he earned, he distributed to all kinds of charities or spent it to equip himself for all his expensive hobbies.

What did the crew members look like and what were their characters?

In the 24th century all peoples had mixed strongly and it was hardly possible to classify the origin of somebody by his appearance. On the passports "Species: Homo Sapiens" was written and only the place of birth was listed. But it was fashionable to go back to one's roots. With gene analysis, family trees, ancient geography and history books, people tried to trace their kinship. Most of them carried genes from all ethnic groups and so everybody could choose his favorite ancestors according to his mood.

The character traits of the people on board were not extremely pronounced and everyone had a very calm, peaceful and moderate character. A crew that had fights or drama every day was good for movies and TV but certainly not in reality. For such long-term missions StarMap paid very close attention to the fact that only psychologically absolutely stable people were on board. Because on board it was a matter of being able to intervene in an emergency. Everyone had to work calmly and efficiently under high pressure and danger to life and was not allowed to panic under any circumstances. Specially developed psycho-hypnosis programs and breathing exercises helped the crew to prepare for the worst emergencies and also to cope with their life in seclusion. All of them were on their second mission and after decades of psychic training, none of them would panic if suddenly aliens would storm on board and for such cases there were also drugs that would dampen the emotions and make the crew even more efficient. But despite the general similarity of the characters on board, each of them had their own peculiarities.

Jay was tall and broad-shouldered, large muscles were bulging under his dark skin. Many people thought he was a professional soldier or wrestler, because that's what he looked like. When asked about his ancestors, he liked to claim that they were Maori warriors. He preferred to wear military clothes and tried to be always and everywhere correct, an exemplary officer, as it should be for an ideal ship captain. From time to time he felt angry about his fate and dreamed of taking revenge somehow. But this usually lasted only a short time and these dreams of revenge had almost completely faded away in the many therapy sessions. He did not know what to do after the Abhysal Mission. Continue to work like Nemo? Or retire somewhere? Occasionally he dreamed of meeting aliens and earning his living as a mercenary. The others laughed at his dreams. But the discussion of meeting aliens could fill whole evenings and was a valued topic of conversation. Just as people could have full-length discussions about possible lottery winnings.

Joe also dreamed of meeting aliens, it was also one of the reasons she had signed on. To be the first human to encounter and explore a new race! She was of medium height and had brown hair, which she liked to dye red. She had grown up on the flanks of Stromboli in the Mediterranean, but she claimed to have Viking ancestors and liked to talk about the Normans who had come as far as Sicily around the year 1000. She was wiry and athletic. In her youth she had participated in almost all sailing races and even sailed the Route de Rhum solo. She didn't mind loneliness and the more dangerous it became the better. She was rather the joker of the crew and always up for something funny.

Lex was the complete opposite. She was rather an anxious character and had an unsurpassable talent to see worst-case scenarios everywhere. This was quite practical because with her pessimist the crew was prepared for all unthinkable eventualities. Meeting aliens would be a horror for her. What if they destroyed Kiki? When asked about her ancestors, she would only reply "the corner between Korea and Japan or something." Like everyone in the crew, she had gone through over a decade of excessive athletic training with Jay and her round chubby body was now lean and well defined. Anyway, many people on earth would have been jealous of the crew's well-toned bodies.

Nemo at nearly 70 was exceedingly fit and could easily beat Jay if they ran a simulated marathon. He was gray-haired. Alternately wore a thick mustache or a bushy beard. He was the only one who could be seen to have Caucasian ancestry and liked to claim that his ancestors came from an influential tsarist family. He was very lethargic and laconic. "Let's see..." was his favorite phrase. And this trait had already saved his life in a few situations. He was exactly the man you wanted at your side when your spaceship was torn apart and you landed on a monster-strewn planet. Nemo would always and everywhere found a solution. He had put aside his hatred of humans for two decades and loved being an emeritus. If the Abhysal would return...if...then he would simply sign on for the next mission. Again and again until he died somewhere in an accident or passed away in peace.

Milo was born on a small colony planet but had spent his entire childhood in South America. When asked where his ancestors came from, he would only say, "from Earth." He had a southern Spanish-type look and could have easily been a heartthrob. But he was not interested in that. He was extremely shy around people anyway, and it had taken him five years to get to know the crew enough to confide in them, but now he considered them his family. Most of the time he was taciturn, but he could easily talk for hours when it came to astronomy or physics. He also pursued psychotherapy and the crew was sure that he became more confident and communicative every year. He faced the idea of encountering aliens fearlessly. "If they have spaceships, they must have a good knowledge of physics. I bet that's exciting." Milo was even taller than Jay and had to duck each time to go under the bulkheads of the starship doors.

He was the only one on board who had no hobbies.