Chapter 12
Mervyn breathed heavily into his spacesuit. He stood on a gallery in Central Control looking down at the remains of Starlight town with mixed feelings. In happier times he would have been please to show off his home to his friends, but not in these circumstances. An eerie silence reigned in place of the usual happy bustle.
Above stretched the shattered dome, a self-contained bubble of air -- until last night. A shaft of light streamed through the hole in the dome: collected, focused, and reflected by the mirrors of orbiting satellites. Right about now it should be noon -- the dome protectors would have cleared allowing the artificial sun to shine through the hexagonal panes at its brightest. He would have stood here, in the warm sunshine, eating a packed lunch with his Dad, but now he didn’t even know if his Dad was alive.
He remembered their last conversation, more a shouted exchange, really – they had stopped actually talking a long time ago.
‘No, Mervyn,’ his father had snarled across the kitchen table, ‘all this talk of racing is just stardust, and as for the Space Academy, do you really think they would let a son of mine into their midst?’
‘This hobby of yours has gone far enough. You are going to get a solid job in the mining corporation. If you work hard you could become a section manager, maybe even take after me, and become a Senator for the Republic.’
‘No way. I’m not interested in politics,’ Mervyn shouted back, ‘I don’t want to work in the mines, and I don’t want to be a traitor, like you.’ A resentful silence followed this last statement and Mervyn realised he had gone too far.
He tried a more reasonable tone, ‘I just want to race sleds,’ he said with an effort. ‘The Space Academy turns out champions, it’s the best place to learn, and I want to be a champion.’
Loren had already gained a science scholarship at the Ethrigian Space Academy through her formidable intellect. Mervyn lacked her brains, besides, the Ethrigians didn’t have a price on her father’s head.
‘I need to win the racing scholarship – it’s my only chance.’
‘It’s a trap,’ his father replied, carefully sitting down as he struggled to reign in his temper and match his son’s reasonable tone. ‘As soon as you touch Ethrigian space they’ll kidnap you and demand I turn myself in for your release. Which I, of course, I will.’
Mervyn waved the communique at his father, his trump card, ‘This is a guarantee, from Lord Tivolli – free passage, immunity from your crimes, the Patriot’s own assurance of safety.’
‘Lord Tivolli is honourable,’ his mother murmured from the sidelines. She hated to see the men of her household fight. Predictably, her son’s sledding ambitions were at the route of the conflict. ‘Why not let Mervyn have his chance, follow his dreams, get it out of his system, like you did.’
His father glared at her, ‘And who will pay to have his sled transported to the race?’
‘I’ll make you a deal,’ Mervyn said quickly, sitting opposite his Father. The tide was turning in his direction, ‘If I lose the scholarship race, I’ll give up sledding until I can fund it myself, and follow you into the mining corporation. However, should I miraculously win, we talk again.’
If his father paid any attention to sledding he would know Mervyn stood a better than even chance of winning. His father foolishly agreed to the deal.
Mervyn won the race, and the Tivolli scholarship to the Ethrigian Space Academy, but he had no intention of returning to face his Father. Instead, he sold his beloved sled and purchased his own passage direct to the Space Academy. He would face his father’s wrath later. Maybe.
Mervyn shuddered, if only he could turn back time and unsay the things he had said, maybe he should have taken the time to work out a proper deal with his Father.
He sighed and pointed out his house in the distance to the others. Like every other dwelling on the asteroid, the windows and glass roof had blown out when the dome exploded. All the debris, furniture, and anything else not secured had instantly disappeared into space -- it looked as if a giant vacuum cleaner had swept everything clean, which in a way it had.
The friends had volunteered to join the Principal in the rescue party, citing their intimate knowledge of Starlight as the excuse they needed to find Mervyn and Loren’s families. They had spent all morning helping survivors out of their hiding places in the storm-rooms and ferrying them to the terminus where they were evacuated to Academy One.
These were people Mervyn knew and had grown up with, so seeing them so forlorn and desperate was heart-breaking. He was relieved to have found his mother and his sisters among the survivors, and Loren’s Aunts, Uncles and cousins, but there was no trace of his Dad. Mervyn knew he would have commanded Starlight from Central Control, so the friends had slipped ahead of the Principal’s search party to investigate the control tower from themselves.
‘You grew up here?’ Aurora asked as they stood outside Mervyn’s house. She had insisted on accompanying the rescue party and had worked tirelessly to rescue survivors. When the others slipped away she insisted on coming with them. Mervyn would rather she had stayed behind, but she could easily tell the Principal where they had gone, so reluctantly he agreed. ‘But it’s so...’
‘Small,’ Mervyn added aggressively.
‘The other homes are practically on top of each other. You must have been falling over one another.’
‘Not really. It’s large for an outworld house,’ Mervyn said, feeling the need to justify his lifestyle, but hating himself for doing so. ‘We had a happy home -- lots of fun -- and I was never alone.’
‘Duty and tradition came first in the Patriarch’s palace.’ Aurora said wistfully, ‘I would have given anything for a happy home.
Mervyn immediately regretted his aggression.’
He turned back to Central Control, now twisted and crumbling, where his father would have co-ordinated resistance. Had anybody inside survived the blast? Was his father still alive somewhere? He stepped back through the shattered remains of an airlock, careful not to rip his spacesuit on the jagged metal.
Everything looked so different from the fresh building he had seen on his frequent visits to dad’s work. Even the staircase to the upper storey lay in ruins.
‘How do we get up there?’ Tarun asked.
‘Use the pinion lines on our spacesuits,’ Mervyn said. ‘Find a secure bit of ceiling, shoot the pinion, and use the suit’s winch to pull yourself up.’
‘That’s meant for a nil-G environment though,’ Tarun said, ‘are you sure It’s strong enough?’
‘Sure, the molecular grip on the end is incredibly strong, I’ve done it before -- one of the advantages of being a light-weight kid.’
‘How do we get it out again?’
‘Easy,’ Loren said, ‘when you feed an amino acid up the line and the molecules on the end let go.’
Mervyn laughed at the blank look on Tarun’s face, ‘Press the release button and it lets go.’ Tarun looked relieved.
Loren sighed, ‘That’s what I just said.’
Mervyn led the way. His pinion lodged in the ceiling and he swung his weight on the line, it still held so he activated the winch and sailed up to the first floor landing. The pinion loosed itself on command. ‘This way,’ he said as the others joined him and led them to the main control room.
The beautifully engraved glass doors were cracked and splintered. Mervyn expected to feel crunching glass beneath his feet, then remembered all the debris had been sucked into space along with anything not bolted down. The roof had completely gone and Central Control stood open to the stars. Mervyn hoped his father had escaped before the roof exploded.
Aurora made the grisly discovery, ‘Argh. Quick, there’s something over here!’ The others ran into a small side room built like a bank vault. Aurora stood with her hand to her mouth. At her feet lay something crumpled and orange.
‘Who is it?’ Loren a
sked anxiously as Mervyn knelt by the lifeless body.
‘I don’t know, but I’ve seen him working here before. Look, someone shot him with a blaster.’ Dried blood crusted the edges of a hole in the corpse’s chest.
‘Fully suited,’ Loren said, ‘that means he survived the main attack and someone shot him afterwards.’
‘You sure?’ Mervyn asked.
‘Of course, his body would have been sucked out when the roof went otherwise. If he survived, it’s a fair bet others did too.’’
‘What is this place?’ Tarun asked.
‘Airtight secure room. If they made it into here before the dome went they would have been safe.’
‘Look at the walls,’ Aurora said. ‘Photon blasts,’ she wandered back into main control. ‘It is the same in here -- photon blasts everywhere. Someone put up quite a struggle here.’