“This is the site of a future city of wonders,” the man continued in an overly dramatic tone. I switched him off and let him run in the background, so that it would appear as though I was still using the orientation procedures for the habitat. No need to produce unexpected patterns.
I went to my assigned room in the freshly printed section for the newcomers and rested a bit, still not used to the higher gravity. I had some gadgets and clothes printed. I went to have a look around, like most of the people, still adhering to the pattern.
I scoured the add-on inflatable sections and the main body of the base. I spent some time on the observation platforms, and headed toward the research facilities. Most of the people who had bothered to travel this far, and who didn’t leave like modern hermits for the sparse little stations outside the planet, ended up here sooner or later. What nobler way was there to spend decades to centuries? Most spent only about a decade on a certain subject, moving on out of the desire for change, but the fields moved forward rapidly. Who knew; perhaps I would devote my life to pursuing scientific challenges as well. I’d have all the time in the world to decide.
I activated the guide again. “Show me the research groups and their members.”
The man obeyed and smiled. “Are you looking for one to join?”
“I hope so.”
Maybe I was following a wrong lead, but what would a man like Arienti do here? Meditate and contemplate his past in one of the hermitage pods? Hardly. Kill time going full tourist? Not his style. Become a trader? Not in this place. He’d spent decades here. He must be pursuing some inquiry.
Proxies of stellar evolution, long-time changes in white dwarf atmospheres, post-main sequence system stability and evolution, surface chemistry of planets after star’s planetary nebula phase, magnetic properties of white dwarfs, conditions for emergence of life on post-MS stars’ planets, distribution of rare metals and their isotopes on the planet’s surface and in the crust…
I stopped there. “Can you lead me to their place?”
The guide’s shining smile became almost annoying. “My pleasure.”
Then it was only a matter of asking a few inconspicuous questions to get to know Arienti’s location. Steering the conversation in the direction I wanted was easy.
“…you probably want Castello’s Castle then,” a man named Tobio, who proved to be a good unsuspecting information source, chuckled. I inclined my head curiously, and he continued: “That’s just a nickname. You’ll know it as Athens. One of the smaller bases out there.”
“Why the nickname?”
I noticed the habitat’s systems whispered no hints to me.
“It was financed by a man named Castello. He seems to live there. Never came back here once the base was established. Hence Castello’s Castle.”
I let a smile play on my lips. “It must be an interesting place, then. I think I’ll pay it a visit.”
It was strange to watch the gifted leave the hospital. Doctor Aster Sebai observed them with mixed feelings. She didn’t work in the gifted section, spanning a part of the previous elderly care ward, but only someone remarkably myopic wouldn’t keep noticing the change. Less than a year after its official approval, the gift was being distributed to randomly chosen citizens who agreed to undergo the procedure. Few had refused.
That morning in the doctors’ mess, there was an unusual buzz. Ruth ran to Aster as soon as she saw her. “Alana has been selected for the gift! Maybe one of our numbers will come up next.”
“Congratulations to her. But we can’t expect anything, it’s a lottery,” Sebai said. She was uncertain if she wanted her number to come up. What would she do, living forever? She was content with her life. Though she didn’t want the option for herself, she hoped her daughter would get to choose.
Of those who refused the procedure, some were paranoid about using insights gained from an alien probe that didn’t know human physiology before it started studying us, some didn’t wish for life everlasting for many reasons. But most wished their number would come up.
“What would you do if you were gifted?” mused Ruth. “I’d take some time off and travel the world.”
“I would continue my work here,” Sebai said dryly. “Those who aren’t gifted still need our help. Not to mention the gifted, who can still become sick or injured, even though they don’t age.”
Ruth scowled at her. “Pessimism doesn’t suit you, Aster.”
“It’s realism. The gift is not a miracle ending all suffering. And for those who become gifted but have no money to speak of, and a family to support, not much really changes.” Sebai would have continued, but her phone beeped. It was Feven, telling her that the office where she worked had been closed for the day for fear of an attack. Sebai’s stomach knotted. It would be so much easier, had the gift really been a miracle….
I’ll drop by the hospital, say hi. Love you, mom.
Sebai went on to make her rounds. Work had always been reassuring to her. For a moment, she could push aside the tensions the gift had sparked, and the risk of plunging into a bloody civil war once again. She still vaguely remembered the images from her childhood, however she wished not to.
A text beeped again. I’m here, mom. Where r u?
Sebai touched the screen to reply. And that was when all turned to dust.
A sudden blast shook the building violently. Sebai staggered and fell. She felt fragments of the wall paint fall on her neck. “Get under the beds!” she managed to shout before a cough got ahold of her. She was blinking fine dust away from her eyes.
The hospital trembled again, and she instinctively rolled under an empty bed.
The third blast came, and the roar of the falling walls deafened her. Then she remembered nothing until waking up in a hastily fashioned mobile infirmary.
When she came to, her entire body was aching and she almost couldn’t hear. But they said she’d only suffered a few broken bones, concussion and dehydration, and had no internal bleeding.
The news of the attack slowly trickled to her. The three bombs completely decimated the hospital; it was nothing but ruins now. A group opposing the current government claimed responsibility for it. They said they’d end the abomination of the gift. That they’d rightfully return the land to its former law. That they had God on their side. That they would make the nation great again.
What they didn’t speak of but Sebai heard about was the terrorized and murdered villages, men beheaded, children taken from their homes for labor and into the army, women dragged away to be nothing but toys to break and cruelly discard, forests burned, animals butchered, and the land scorched to cinders if they sensed that victory was eluding them.
But she couldn’t bring herself to feel the terror of it. All of it belonged to Feven, still buried somewhere under the ruins. Sebai still clung to her last remnants of hope three days later, when they uncovered two more survivors. Later that day, they discovered Feven.
They concluded she had bled out at most a day after the blast.
“Where are you going?” A slender dark woman appeared on the rover’s passenger’s seat. Another agent, like the guide from Olympus.
“To Athens. I’m looking for an interesting research group to join.”