Read Faster Than Light: Babel Among the Stars Page 10

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  Seth watched carefully as the workers dissembled the I.S.S. Prosperity, one of the largest faster-than-light vessels in the galaxy.

  For centuries, the Prosperity ran a triangular route between NewPasTur, Agarion, and Earth. The Prosperity was a passenger ship as well as a cargo transport. Over one-third of the food on NewPasTur was imported on the Prosperity, and there were already rumbles that the planet would suffer from famine as soon as the vessel was decommissioned.

  “This is going to be big,” Seth said. “You should not have stopped the trade routes to NewPasTur until near the very end.”

  Absalom groaned aloud. He was standing a few feet from Seth, near the window out onto the dock. Unlike Seth, he was not watching the slow deconstruction of the Prosperity. “And why is that, Mr. Garland?”

  “NewPasTur cannot survive on its own. They have no farmland, and are incapable of feeding their own people. They will starve, and cutting them off this early means that everyone will know about it. If you waited until the last minute, until the very beginning of the Fall, their collapse would go unnoticed.”

  “Those are good points,” Absalom replied. “Perhaps you are right. It would not be too difficult to re-route a few of the remaining routes to provide more assistance to NewPasTur.”

  Seth felt a chill go down his back. Why was he doing this? Why was he helping Absalom with the implementation of the Fall? He decided he had to keep his mouth shut and, instead, silently turned back to the workers in the repair bay.

  They were methodically dis-assembling the Prosperity piece by piece. Most of the parts that they removed were far too large and far too heavy to be carried, so they used special kinetic gloves to strip them and move them onto large conveyor belts near the back of the bay. The gloves, which were small enough to be comfortably worn, emitted a powerful energy field that could be used to carry thousands of pounds of metal with little effort by the user.

  One of the workers pointed his palm at the rear of the massive starship. The hull plating began to shiver and shake. Within seconds, a tall sheet of metal bent away from the hull. The worker pulled it free with a tug of his arm. The metal floated in the air, just inches from his hand, as he cautiously transferred it to the back of his room.

  “They don’t even have to strain their muscles to destroy it,” Seth muttered. It felt so wrong. The starship they were pulling apart, piece by piece, was the pinnacle of human innovation. Nothing like it existed before. And no matter what the Republic officials said, Seth didn’t believe anything like it would exist again.

  “What did you say?” Absalom asked.

  Seth shook his head. “Nothing. I’m satisfied. I’ve seen enough. I want to see the records from the warped space. I want to know why we’re doing this.”