Becoming Chosen

To my mind, those living in the Habitat Modules will have a much more fulfilling life. The pastoral existence has less that might spark disastrous innovation. The Technical Crew must have enough science knowledge to maintain the ship, but they are only destined to frustration by being unable to move that science forward.

- From the diary of Sean Morris, Sealed Archive

Ronan Candemir knew he was in trouble as soon as he opened his locker. His data-set was blinking in the distinctive five pulse pattern and bright red light of an immediate priority. Sighing, he set down the helmet of his Void Suit and reached for the data-set. The device registered a change in position and text began scrolling across its black glass surface.

“Crewman R. Candemir, you are to proceed directly to the Captains office. Acknowledge and state ETA,” said the ship’s voice. Of course, it was loud enough for everyone in the suit-room to hear. Ronan blushed as he heard the half-hidden snickers from his workmates.

Having no choice, Ronan said, “Acknowledged. ETA Captains office, forty minutes.”

Part of him wanted to drag out the process of taking off his VS and putting it away. Anything to put off having yet another session with the Captain and First Officer. But if he did, then all the others on his crew would see it. Short of finding an actual fault, tending a suit only took between ten and twelve minutes, no more, no less.

His hands and eyes followed the routine, as he silently mouthed the mnemonics for each step. “Seals set right and tight” as he checked the condition of each of the major couplings. “Fabric neat, from head to feet”, as he did the visual check for any wear spots or debris. It was so routine and calming, that he could almost put what would come after out of his mind.

Ronan was a little surprised when he realized he’d completed the entire procedure. It seemed like only seconds had gone by. There was nothing left but to change into his ship-suit and face the music.

Stopping by the sinks at the far end of the room, Ronan checked his suit for stains and wrinkles, all the while practicing the impassive face he’d need to keep while he was dressed down once again.

A hand landed hard on his shoulder, startling him. Ronan jumped, which was greeted by the sound of girl’s laughter. Daleen and her friends, of course.

“So, you’re on the discipline list again, eh, Candemir?” Daleen said with an evil smile on her face. She and her friends were a couple of years older than Ronan, and seemed to take great delight in all his failings.

“It’s just a summons to see the Captain,” Ronan mumbled, hoping they would just leave it. He wasn’t that lucky.

“Oh, sure! Everyone gets immediate priority calls to the Captains office!” Daleen said with fake enthusiasm. “Why Dawn, you’ve had those, right?”

Dawn the biggest of the three shook her head. “No, Daleen, never had.”

“Well, surely you were ordered there, Carlin?” Daleen asked her other crony.

“Not me, D.”

“Hmm,” Daleen said, theatrically putting a finger to the point of her chin. Ronan thought it made her look like a lack-wit. “Neither have I. So, it seems that summoned on priority is not something that ‘just’ happens. But don’t worry, Non-con, I doubt you’ll be put in the recycle bin!”

There was nothing Ronan could say that would make things any better, so he didn’t. He just put his eyes on the floor and left the room. The sound of their laughter followed him until the doors slid shut.

Slouching in the tram seat Ronan watched the gray walls of the tunnel it ran through and tried to figure out what he had done that earned him a trip to see the Captain. It was better than thinking about the nickname Daleen was doing her best to hang on him. Non-con was short for Non-conforming parts. They were rare and always discarded as soon as they were detected.

The worst part was the nickname fit. Ronan was on his fourth Path. There were lots of Tech who switched from one Path to another as they learned their best skills, but as far as he knew no one had every switched Paths four times.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t any good at the first three. In fact, the problem was exactly the opposite. After a short time working on the path-tasks Ronan had them mastered. No, the problem was that he kept thinking of better ways to do things. Even when he could show it was more efficient, or even safer, his suggestions were shut down. They were not part of the Way, and the Way was all. It was all so dumb!

The tram slowed to a stop and Ronan got out when the pressure doors shushed open. This was officer country, though you couldn’t tell from looking around. The halls were perfect squares of stone, stretching out for hundreds of yards both to the left and right. Overhead were the inset light panels. Every fifty yards there was a raised sill of a pressure door. Just like everywhere else the Tech lived and worked. Long square halls, with doors at varying intervals.

Even with all the similarities there was a different feel in these halls. People moved with the confidence that comes from knowing they were among the elite of the Tech. Ronan had been a child in these halls, and even though he was far from elite, at least he knew how to walk so as not to draw attention. He put his shoulders back and kept his head up as he strode to the Holy of Holies, the Captain’s office.

As he entered the outer office, Lieutenant Harding, the Captain’s aide, looked up from his screen. He gave Ronan a sympathetic smile.

“Crewman R. Candemir, reporting as ordered,” Ronan said as he drew himself to attention.

“Acknowledged,” Harding replied. “You can go right in; the Captain and First Officer are waiting for you.”

Ronan nodded and headed for the big doors behind and to the right of Harding. The Lieutenant looked as though he wanted to say something more, but even when Ronan paused he didn’t. The doors sensed him and hissed open.

Inside was a much bigger office. There was the Captain’s desk, a massive thing everyone said was made of wood grown on Earth hundreds of years ago. Behind it sat Captain Collins, the twenty-ninth to hold that position. His ship-suit was basically the same as Ronan’s, if one ignored the jacket and gold braid.

The Captain was heavy set, long years of mostly desk work made him much stouter than most of the Tech. Sometime before Ronan was born he had begun to lose his hair. All that was left now was a fuzzy white fringe that ran from above his ears, around the back of his head.

His pudgy face was creased with laugh-lines and graced with bright blue eyes that could sparkle with delight. Today, however, there was no smile, nor any twinkle in his eyes. His mouth was pursed as though he had bitten something sour and the eyes were as hard as shadowed stone, on the Surface.

Standing in front of the desk, also looking at Ronan was Damon Nesbit, the First Officer. Ronan had once heard someone describe Nesbit as a ‘long, thin streak of misery’. More precise words might have never been spoken.

Nesbit was only a little over six feet tall, but was so narrow in the shoulders and hips that he looked even taller. His lack of padding was clear in his hands. They were both skeletal and spidery. He too was bald, but it was a choice rather than age. Nesbit shaved his head, including the eyebrows. It somehow made his dark brown eyes look even darker.

In fact, his grooming habits might have prevented him from rising in the ranks of the officers, if he had not been such a by-the-Way-always kind of person. As it was, the combination of his unflinching adherence to the Way combined with his appearance made him even more of a legend in his generation. Ronan loathed him with every ounce of his being.

“Crewman R. Candemir, reporting as ordered!” Ronan said, once again snapping to attention.

“You certainly took your time, Candemir,” Nesbit said dryly.

“Sir, I received the priority summons as I came back in from the surface. I had to see to my suit, and then travel from Airlock 20 to here,” Ronan replied.

“Ah, well, it is good to see that you follow the Way, at least some of the time,” Nesbit shot back. There was no acceptable answer to that, so Ronan took refuge in silence. He couldn’t get in more trouble if he kept his mouth shut when not asked a direct question.

Captain Collins leaned forward and put his elbows on his desk making a triangle, with one hand wrapped around the other. “Do you know why you have been summoned?” he asked, his bass voice sounding like it came from somewhere deeper than his throat.

“No sir,” Ronan said. It was the honest truth. Of all the times he’d been here, this was the first where he had no idea what caused it. He hadn’t snuck into off limits areas in years, nor advocated changing the Way in his new Path. All he knew was it was never a good thing to get summoned like this.

“Are you sure, Ronan?” the Captain asked again.

Ronan opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn’t admit to doing something he didn’t even know he’d done. In the end he had to say “No, sir,” again. When it was clear he wasn’t going to say anything else, the Captain gestured for Nesbit to continue.

“Your little friend, Ami Sunderland was here earlier. She has been increasing the resistance capacity in the pressure doors on deck two. Fifteen of them were five percent above spec. She claimed it made them more functional in the event of a loss of pressure.”

“I am sorry, sir, but I don’t see what that has to do with me,” Ronan said.

“Oh, you don’t? I seem to remember a crewman who suggested increasing the capacity of all electrical connections on the ship would be more efficient.” Nesbit paused, and then smiled a nasty smile. “That was you wasn’t’ it?”

“Yes, sir. But as the First Officer knows, I no longer am on the electrical systems path.” Ronan replied. It had been his first major blunder as an adult, trying to convince his superiors to change the way electricity was distributed. He had the designs and numbers ready, but they hadn’t even considered it. When he pushed it up the chain of command, he’d wound up in this very office, being reduced in rank and moved to another path.

“Yes, you were moved, and moved again, then again. Yet you continue to agitate for changing the Way on every path you are given!”

“Sir!” Ronan said, “Due respect, First Officer, but that is not true! I have said nothing about changing any Way since long before being assigned to the Surface Way.”

“Crewman Sunderland says she was inspired by you. Do you deny you encouraged her to act against the interest of the ship by altering the Way of Maintenance for the pressure doors?”

Ronan had talked with Ami about the doors, but he hadn’t encouraged her to act. She had seen what happened to him when he challenged the Way. She should have been smart enough to learn from his mistakes. Best to stick to saying as little as possible.

“I never encouraged her, sir.”

“So you say,” Nesbit sneered. He held up a tablet. “Then there is this.” He looked down and began to read. “The Way of Maintenance has become a blanket that is smothering the Tech. It rewards the dullest, and stifles the very creativity that could open a whole world of options.”

As Nesbit read, Ronan could feel his skin getting cold. At the same time a fire was building in his stomach. “Where did you get that?” he hissed, too angry to even end the sentence with sir.

“From you journal file, of course,” Nesbit said smoothly. “Did you think that we wouldn’t watch someone who jumps from path to path, and fails to follow the Way in each case? I’m surprised. For all your failures, I’ve always thought you were smart. Too smart in fact. Maybe I was wrong.”

Ronan was as angry as he had ever been. That journal was his private thoughts, his way of dealing with his rigid life and the rigid people in it. Writing out blazing criticism of the Way and everything else in the most contemptuous language was just about the only tactic he knew for keeping it all inside. Now the First had violated that, had read his most personal thoughts!

Without consideration, Ronan clenched his fists, and would have stepped up to Nesbit with harm in mind, if he had not been saved by the bellow from the Captain.

“Stand to, Crewman!”

A lifetime of conditioning straightened his spine and brought his hands to his side, palms in, fingers fully extended. It did nothing for his rage, but it did stop him from attacking an officer.

Nesbit turned to the Captain as if nothing had happened. “Captain, I have said time and again that Crewman Candemir is unfit, and a danger to the ship and our way of life. This writing is only the surface of the well.”

There was silence in the office. Ronan had no choice to but to stay at attention until the Captain released him. It meant he had to stare directly ahead. He could not see the Captains face without looking down, so he had no idea what the old man was thinking.

“You did not tell me that you had accessed the crewman’s private files, First,” the Captain finally said.

“Sir, you did give orders for Candemir to be monitored, after the last change of path.” Nesbit pointed out. Ronan had not known this.

“I never expected you to take that as a blanket permission to invade every area of his life. What you have done is excessive.”

“Sir, with respect, I disagree. Candemir has set a horrible example for those younger than him. By moving him from path to path we have exposed even more of them to his insidious influence.”

“First, we do not and have never punished crew for their thoughts, only for actions. I suspect that if we were to read other crew and even officer’s journals we would see things that shocked and appalled us. We cannot control how people feel, nor should they be punished for it. If they do not act on those feelings.”

“But this is different, Captain!” Nesbit said urgently, “Candemir has a history of willful acts against the Way! He must be,”

“That’s enough, Nesbit,” the Captain cut in.

“Sir!” Nesbit began to object, only to be cut off again.

“I said enough, First Officer,” the Captain said his voice as cold as the outer-hull. “We will discuss this later, in private. Dismissed.”

Ronan continued to stare at the far wall, but he heard Nesbit’s mouth open, as if he was going to continue arguing. After a moment he saluted, and stalked out of the office.

When the doors slid shut, the Captain took a deep breath and then blew it out in a long whoosh.

“At ease,” he said, releasing Ronan from his stiff posture. Looking down he could see the ship’s Master staring at him bemusedly. He gestured to one of the two chairs in front of his desk. “Have a seat, Ronan.”

“Sir, he should not have read my private journal!” Ronan said, too angry to sit just yet.

The Captain looked at him with mild blue eyes. “No, he shouldn’t have. I am sorry about that, I had no idea he had done it. Now, please sit, boy.”

Ronan was still angry but hearing the person with the final say on everything apologize went a long way towards fixing things. He took the chair on the left.

“Did you encourage Sunderland?”

“No, sir! I wouldn’t do that! If for no other reason than to prevent her from getting in trouble.”

“She has managed to achieve that on her own then. Sunderland has been reduced in seniority by one cycle and will have to prove herself on testing circuits again before she’ll be allowed to repair or replace them.”

Ronan winced internally. Poor Ami! Being reduced was almost the harshest punishment available. It would follow her for the rest of her life. She would be condemned to working with crewmates younger than her, while her peers advanced on their paths.

“Tell me, Ronan, would her idea have worked?”

Ronan looked at the man across the desk for a moment. From anyone else this would have been a trap question, and it still might.

“Sir, is it the Captain asking or my uncle?”

The Captain smiled his lopsided grin, “Your uncle.”

“I don’t know all the particulars, Uncle, but based on what the First said, it should. Faster response time would mean less lost atmosphere. The change in closing speed would not be enough to catch anyone by surprise. I am sure Ami thought it through completely before doing it. She is very thorough.”

“Of course she is, else she wouldn’t be one of your friends,” the older man sighed. “Ronan, you and Ami and the others like you have to understand. We do things according to the Way for a reason.”

“But Uncle, it is all so arbitrary. Use wire circuits for some applications, but use optical for others. Why not just use the faster and more durable option for everything?”

“Do I really need to answer that for you?”

Ronan knew better than to act petulantly. He might be the Captains blood, but there were some things no Capitan would ever put up with.

“No, sir,” Ronan said.

“Good. Why don’t you tell me why we don’t make changes to the ship and the Way.

Ronan took a breath in through his nose. He couldn’t sigh it out, but he did need air to respond. A skirting of the rules he had carefully worked out cycles ago.

“We follow the Way and do not deviate from it because our resources are limited,” Ronan recited woodenly. “Experimentation uses up resources. To achieve our mission, we must stick to what has been tested and proven before the ship ever left Earth.”

“Very good,” said the Captain, “but somehow I don’t think that you believe it.”

It wasn’t a question, so Ronan could get away with not answering. After a quiet moment, the Captain spoke again. “You should believe in the Way. The evidence of its success is all around us. For more than five hundred and eighty cycles the Way has kept the ship and all its inhabitants safe and healthy.”

What the Captain said was irrefutable. “Yes, sir, I understand that,” Ronan said, a little part of him dying as he uttered the words. It was a long time since he thought that any argument would change minds, but the desire to try had never completely left him. Ronan looked down at the desk so the Captain wouldn’t see his pain.

“You are not the first to think of these things, you know,” said the Captain, “When I was a young man, I had an idea or two I was sure would make things better, easier.”

Ronan’s gaze snapped up at this. The Captain had questioned the Way? That was not remotely possible!

“Yes, I was young once,” the Captain said with a smile. “But I also understood that there would never be a time in my life when it would be acceptable to try them. The mission must come first! Before anyone’s desires or plans. Thirty generations have sacrificed, held their tongues, put their better ideas behind them, all so this ship would make it to the new world.”

“But Uncle, sir, some of those ideas might have shortened the trip. Then fewer generations would have had to sacrifice.”

“Well they might, boy. But they might have ended the mission as well. Just think of what would happen if we made a mistake altering the Way in the antimatter facility. The Builders had the option of a wide variety of systems. It is fair to assume they chose the ones they did for very good reasons. Reasons we might find out to our detriment if we begin changing things.”

Again the Captain was right. The antimatter that would power their deceleration into the new solar system was as dangerous as it was powerful. In all of his thinking on how to improve systems, Ronan had always put off thinking about changes to the machines that created and stored the deadly fuel. Recognizing defeat, Ronan gave in.

“As you say, Captain,” he said glumly again looking down.

“This is what has been true for me and all the older generations of Tech. But it will not be true for you, at least not forever,” the Captain told him. “We will execute the turnover in a few weeks, and then deceleration will begin. You, my boy, will live to see us arrive at our destination. When we do, we will need your talents and those of Ami and all the others who chafe under the constraints of the Way. In two or three cycles things will change radically. Surely you can hold out until then?”

“I’ll try Uncle. But I don’t understand, if things are going to be different that soon, why not start now?”

“Impatience is a disease of the young,” the Captain sighed almost inaudibly. He drummed his fingers on the desk. “You won’t like the answer, but here it is. We wait because it is part of the Way. There are archives that cannot be accessed until we have decelerated for a certain amount of time. This was done by the Builders to prevent out of control changes.”

The Captain did know him well. Ronan hated the answer.

“Even if we could access the locked archives, I wouldn’t start changing things any sooner than planned. You are too young to know this, but people do not like change, they hate uncertainty. Which is why the First Officer is so hard on you.”

“I think it is because he hates me, sir.”

This startled a laugh out of the Captain. “It is not you that he hates, boy, it’s what you represent; uncertainty. The Way does not require many decisions, but once we accept changes to the Way, decisions will be constant. First Officer Nesbit sees that as chaos. He has been taught, and rightly so, that chaos would be the death of the ship. In earlier cycles, he would have been a perfect Captain. Now we will need someone with more flexibility in their thinking.”

“I don’t like to think about you being gone, Uncle,” Ronan interjected.

The Captain waved this away, “Oh, I’ll be around for at least five more cycles, don’t you worry. It is plenty of time to shepherd in the changes needed.” His manner turned colder, gone was Ronan’s uncle, leaving only the Captain in all his majesty. “But I cannot do it if you and the others keep provoking Nesbit into a more ridged adherence to the Way!”

Ronan swallowed convulsively at the whiplash change of tone.

“I am ordering you to talk to the other malcontents, explain, in small words if needed, why they must keep their heads down and their radical ideas to themselves.”

Ronan opened his mouth to deny there was such a group, only to be cut off by the Captain. “I need neither your confirmation nor denial of such a group, nephew. If such people exist, you would know them. So, take this order and do us both a favor by keeping things like the pressure doors from happening again! Even if you are never an officer, you have a leadership responsibility and this is it. Am I perfectly clear?”

“Yes sir, completely clear.”

“Good. I am going to assign you some punishment cleaning. Your friend Ami is on that duty now. I want to put the two of you together as soon as possible. Plus it will make Nesbit happier that you were disciplined for what you wrote.”

Ronan could not believe it! Even though he had done nothing wrong he was going to get punishment detail to make the First Officer happier!

“Yes, yes,” said the Captain before Ronan could speak, “It is completely unjust. But it is in the service of a larger goal. We all have to endure things we do not like for the sake of our mission. I am counting on you to help me achieve that goal. No matter how hard it gets. Will you do your absolute best?”

“I will, sir.” Ronan replied frustrated at the turn of events but also obscurely pleased that the Captain was asking for his help.

“I knew I could count on you,” the Captain told him. “Don’t forget, this must stay confidential. I will speak to Nesbit about reading your journal file, but it is no guarantee he won’t, so commit nothing about this conversation to text. You are dismissed.”