Chapter Six
“Kellar, look at that!” Kiel called, pointing out the silica screen as the lead grey clouds broke beneath the shuttle.
The two of them stared, silent, as the vast crystal mirror of Lake Firien stretched wide beneath them, far away to the furthest horizon. Firien City glimmered white around a gigantic dome in the distance, flanked by a patch of brilliant green forest. Even the tallest trees seemed no more than close-cut grasses at this height, and the undulating, rugged hills not much more than tiny mounds set between the faint depressions of the silver-cut river valleys.
Their shuttle landed in Firien City, and the engineers from Ariyalsynai boarded a special transport waiting to take them to the site of The Firien Project; in ten minutes, they had reached the wide docking strip for the transport cut away into the dome. The shuttle passed through a new security checkpoint and continued into the starkly lit, gigantic dome that housed the bare skeleton of Selesta away on an artificial plain, where thousands of technicians worked in zero-g suits and on the ground on millions of assorted components; the ship itself was as bare as a sherin tree in the dead of winter, but for a painfully thin rudimentary infrastructure of the central engine core. Near the site stood the several smaller domed and cylindrical buildings of the archival center, museum, MSF barracks, and communications center.
“Creator above, there’s nothing there!” Kellar cried, staring in open-mouthed wonder at the bare Firien prototype Selesta.
“Looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us, then, doesn’t it?” Kiel laughed. The other engineers turned on the pair, offering condescending expressions at their lack of humility and reverence.
Kiel retaliated with an impish grin, and the moment the others had their backs turned, he shot Kellar a conspiratorial look; Kellar nodded understanding. Kiel stealthily turned and fiddled with the atmospheric gauge, turning up the helium content in the air; he and Kellar held their breaths, grabbed their bags and stepped away, hurrying into the inner air lock as nonchalantly as possible, suppressing laughter.
Moments later, the shuttle landed at the landing strip; Kiel and Kellar headed onto the airstrip; the other engineers appeared a moment later, and an escort led them to meet Major Kazankov in the communications tower.
Kazankov was hovering over one of the communications technicians in the communications center, lecturing him on something having to do with the authorizations codes into the center being changed without her approval, when the engineers arrived; she turned aside to greet them, bestowing a critical eye upon them, then strode towards them like a wild animal with an appropriately keen glare.
Some of the engineers stepped backward; Kellar just stared at Kazankov with an open-mouthed expression.
“So, this is the latest shipment the FSB has sent over to us.” Kazankov said, seeming completely unimpressed; her eye shifted from the engineer standing in front to Kiel, who hadn’t moved an inch and listened in complete detachment.
That one isn’t afraid of me, Lierva thought, registering the fact with no small surprise. Yet she turned to the leader of the engineers and waited.
“Lieutenant Manafries and the Brimlad Engineering Division reporting, sir.” Manafries squeaked in a voice several pitches above a comfortable level. Manafries turned three shades darker than usual; a chorus of laughter sounded round the room.
Lierva turned and glared at the communications officers; that was enough to silence the officers, and the room became quiet again, with subdued laughter occasionally interrupting the background noise of the center.
The engineers wore expressions of mortification as each began to say something and discovered that their voices were equally shrill; Kellar suppressed a smile as open laughter broke out again behind Kazankov.
Kiel’s face was impassive, but his mercurial eyes flashed in amusement; Lierva turned to him, with an expression of deliberate calmness.
“And who might you be?”
“Lieutenant Kiel of the Brimlad Engineering Division.” Kiel said evenly, in a normal voice.
“Well, Kiel,” Lierva said, eyeing him carefully. “You don’t seem to be squeaking like a rusty hinge.” She observed.
“No, sir.” Kiel said, his eyes flicking imperceptibly to Kellar.
“And what about you?” Lierva turned to Kellar, following Kiel’s quick gaze.
“Me?” Kellar echoed in his usual voice. “Lieutenant Maesan Kellar, sir.”
Lierva nodded significantly, then turned to Kiel and gave him a sharp glance before scanning the assembled division.
“I’m Major Kazankov of the Martial Scientific Force. Welcome to Firien, for what it’s worth. I doubt very many of you will last the year here, but you’re here and I expect you to do your best. Ornenkai will be meeting you later this afternoon, and before the end of the day there will be one meeting with the three technician chiefs Orrmyc Dennian, Celekar Calain, and Janri Miligdien. I trust this strange affliction will have passed by then.” She added, reading the mortified expressions of the Brimlad Division.
“Pehrif.” Lierva said sharply.
“Yes, sir?” A stout, pleasant-faced officer stepped from behind one of the communications consoles.
“Please escort our new engineering division to their quarters.” Lierva said.
“Yes, sir.” Pehrif nodded and headed past them. “Follow me, if you please, sirs.”
The engineers turned, all but Kiel and Kellar, who lingered a moment by Kazankov as the other slowly moved out the door.
Kazankov said nothing, but before the pair turned, the barest crack of a smile turned up one side of her mouth.
Kellar had been scheduled to work on the weapons carriages during Kiel’s first day off-duty at Firien, so Kiel took a shuttle by himself into Firien City.
He returned late, very late into the evening, completely sodden and chilled to the bone after a day’s exploration into the cold lands outside the Firien City dome, having gone as far south as the white sands to the northern tip of the changewinds, and after all of his adventuring, he had only just begun to explore the wild province. He returned to his new quarters inside The Firien Project dome with a heart lightened by delight, utterly indifferent to the chill of his body and the weariness of his limbs.
He had never imagined that such a place existed. Was it possible that few people appreciated this untouched, bucolic, ancient land? Kiel didn’t particularly care; he was glad that those who had appreciated Firien had left it untouched for him to discover, glad that those who would have destroyed it had neglected the remote province.
In the seasons that followed, Kiel came to know the land through verdant forest and sun-drenched field, across the pebbled beaches and up the wild, wandering paths through the lower hills. He scaled the lower mountains, where Valeria’s light reflected prisms of color in rainbowed hue all around the wintry silence, even on the snow-covered lyra leaves, where patches of silver-gold shone through.
Kiel tramped across the glens as the snows melted and retreated, and when the warm season approached, he made his way to the north, where the stony brooks ran down from the mountains, tumbling in waterfalls down steep, rocky banks, where the wind swept up the wild sherin flowers on their branches, and lilac petals wafted and swirled in the air, cascading like snow upon the land, and where the ceiras birds sang mournfully over the bright, sandy shores of Lake Firien.
There, in the north, he plunged into the pure blue water and emerged into the warm sun in glorious delight, like a man being re-born.
During these seasons, Kiel and the other engineers had been making progress on the design of Selesta; Kiel and Kellar stayed through the year while several of the other engineers quit or got re-posted, until at last they and Manafries were the last remaining engineers of the Brimlad Division left working on The Firien Project.
Kiel and Kellar soon began working closely with one of the highly specialized tec
hnicians, Lieutenant Celekar Calain, who had been at Firien several years, and who, it turned out, appeared to be the principal driving force behind the most successful strides made on the Selesta thus far, at least as far as Kiel and Kellar could ascertain. The unassuming, rock-solid technician went by “Celekar” only and made no show of himself, but it became clear to the newest engineers as it had to the old that Celekar was a brilliant technician, with a superbly dexterous hand in operating the various spacecraft machinery; Celekar had personally constructed a large portion of the Selesta hull and most of the newly designed central crew’s quarters, and had coordinated much of the weapons integration into the hull, as well as the much of the complex wiring in the completed sections thus far.
By the end of the year, with people transferring in and out of The Firien Project, a strong friendship emerged between the outcasts of Firien: Celekar, Kiel, and Kellar, and a resident bio-systems specialist and botanist from the MSF, currently the medical specialist Rikhsehr Gerryls. And if any had admitted it, these four men unofficially included Major Kazankov in their camaraderie, even though she was their commanding officer; and, by the end of the year, they would all have been content if the project never reached completion, so that they could remain at Firien together, even though each worked harder than ever to see the project to its end.
"How much further is it to the site?" The man seated behind Lierva Kazankov asked as though thinking carefully about his words; his accent and speech sounded like something out of an ancient holo-drama, even though she had grown used to the antiquated speech of Firien, and the unhurried, lyrical quality of the voices of its inhabitants.
Lierva’s passenger had been wearing an ordinary-looking jet black flightsuit and helmet when she picked him up; she had a vague suspicion that he wasn’t MSF, but she had been instructed to pick up the man waiting with the MSF escort in Firien City, and she asked no questions. Quite honestly, she just wanted to get back to the Firien site and record her data for the day.
"Only a few minutes," she threw over her shoulder, then shook her head.
I hate mystery details, she thought to herself, wondering why Ornenkai had asked her to take the Valerian fighter to Firien City to pick up the man in the outlandish uniform waiting just outside the astroport.
Behind her, the man chuckled to himself, finding amusement in something he did not choose to mention. Lierva shrugged and focused her attention ahead until the large site of The Firien Project appeared on the horizon. Selesta’s liquid blue hull was now completely finished, and the encasing dome that had contained the construction had been dismantled.
Lierva had been in Firien since the infrastructure and inner hull construction of the “Firien Prototype” began four years ago. Firien was her fourth post, but she had only been out of training for six years. She had received a promotion to Major while working on the Gweliar moon base on Ishkur as a reward for quick-thinking in the near destruction of the adjacent moon colony by an internal systems malfunction; Lierva had returned from a brief outer-colony patrol when her own commanding officer and the other subordinates died in a sudden explosion in the command center. Lierva had returned to pandemonium in the civilian sectors within the dome.
Lieutenant Kazankov, never one to run from a challenge, had quickly organized and evacuated more than half of the resident population by the time a relief crew arrived from the neighboring base. While the Gweliar base was being rebuilt, she had been given her choice of transfer and had chosen The Firien Project, where she had initially been assigned as a coordinator between the engineer crews and the strategists and had gradually been promoted up through the ranks to one of the MSF commanders of the project.
Lierva had originally been trained in Ariyalsynai, where she had learned scouting and defense tactics as part of her specialization in strategic analysis and aeronomy, the study of physical and chemical processes in the upper atmosphere, along with various other planetary sciences related to the study of atmospheric anomalies. Pilot training had been a pre-requisite for her specialization, but she did not think of herself as a transport shuttle operator.
The man behind Lierva laughed again.
"Is something amusing?" She ventured in dissembled irritation, but the strange man chose not to respond. Several minutes later, Lierva took the fighter down by the makeshift Firien astroport, near the construction buildings where the project staff had lived and organized the construction for several years.
As soon as the technicians had taken the plane to be refueled and cleaned up, she vaulted out of the cockpit and hurried down the landing ladder, then waited beside one of the fighter craft technicians for her passenger to disembark.
High behind her, away a short distance on the field, the new explorer starship Selesta blotted out the view of the sky beyond it.
Lierva watched disinterestedly as the man stepped from the plane, clutching her flight helmet with three fingers; at least he hadn’t taken his time going down the ladder, she thought. She couldn’t help but wonder—why hadn’t he flown in by himself? He seemed perfectly comfortable and familiar with the Valerian fighter. And why all the secrecy? This was her post, her command, and Ornenkai had left her in the dark about why she had been sent to Firien City.
The black-clad man jumped down the last few steps and turned with a wave to the technician, who promptly took over the fighter. Lierva stepped away.
“You don’t need a pilot to take a ground shuttle around the site,” she said, preparing to leave. Ornenkai had said nothing about entertaining the stranger.
“Actually, I intended to walk.” He told her; again she noticed how odd his accent was, and she had the sense that he consciously made an effort not to speak as he was used to speaking but instead to try to speak more like her. “You’re heading back to the construction command center, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then there’s no sense in parting ways, unless you’re in a hurry.”
“No.” She said, shrugging; they turned towards the small, bucolic community with its cluster of tall, metallic buildings and network of silver domes lying bare on the open, grassy field, without clear connecting transport tunnels.
"Well, Major Kazankov—”
“Everyone calls me Lierva.”
“Lierva, then. Can you tell me where I may find Elder Ornenkai at the moment?" the stranger asked, as they passed beyond the fleet of air and ground shuttles.
"There's a meeting going on right now," she offered. “Kiel, Kellar, Janri, Celekar, and the other top engineers and technicians were assembled for a progress report with Ornenkai when I left for Firien City. They should be finishing soon.”
The stranger nodded.
“Yes, I’ve heard all about the engine problems. Everyone’s worried the project will fail, because no engine will ever be able to get Selesta off the ground.”
“You know all about it, do you? Are you from the Council?” she asked.
He turned to her. “Me? Not exactly.”
“You’re here to work on The Firien Project though. And you’re clearly not MSF.”
“Oh?”
“No. Your attitude isn’t MSF at all.”
“Really?”
“You would have told me your name and rank as soon as I arrived.”
“I suppose.” He admitted, removing his flight helmet as they stepped onto the grass; a breeze was stirring on the field, setting wildflowers waving to and fro, and he seemed inclined to enjoy it.
“I hear you’ve done wonders managing the project teams.” The stranger said, taking a deep, unconcerned breath in the open air. “Ornenkai says the technicians were complaining about hours, compensation, and the monotony of their positions, but you sorted them out. You know, before you stepped in, I was beginning to worry how the issues would ever be resolved.
“Quite a good idea, to give them each a task partner, cut their hours, and give them
each a season’s leave in Firien City. It’ll slow down production, but we are aiming for quality. Even if Ornenkai doesn’t understand the physical limitations of mortals anymore—” the clearly half-race man laughed abruptly. “I think he’s seen an improvement in the construction. At least, that’s the impression we’re getting in Ariyalsynai.”
She just stared at him. He seemed self-assured, oblivious to the shock he had given her; though his hair was darker than usual, it shone with a bright silvery glint in the afternoon sun. His dark blue, slightly almond shaped eyes were nearly violet, startling her because they were so close to the color of Seynorynaelian blood. There was a strangeness about his face; he was half-Kayrian.
"Fynals—Hinev.” She said, almost stuttering it. She knew his face, knew it well. Of course! she thought. That was why he was clad in black, the black of the ancient explorers, not the same black uniform of the technician crew or the Federation regulators. But why then all this secrecy? Hinev often came to visit Ornenkai and the other engineers by himself, without an escort, and went about his own business at the site; she had passed by him once as he was investigating the technicians at work more than a year ago.
“That’s what I’m here for—to keep the peace.” She managed at last.
He laughed again.
“What have you heard?” she asked, noticing his expression. “Has that upstart Lieutenant Kiel been circulating stories?”
“I heard about the Zadúmchov incident, yes, some time ago, in fact.” Hinev said. “I imagine few people have ever told him what they really thought of him straight to his face.” Hinev said. “Or with such color.”
Lierva suppressed a laugh.
“I can’t say I’m glad he’s not involved anymore, but at least he won’t go poking his nose into our business anymore.” Lierva shrugged. “Ornenkai doesn’t interfere unnecessarily with the engineers’ work anywhere near as much as he used to. He stepped back a bit when Kiel, Giorlian, Manafries, and Kellar got here, when he realized they knew what they were doing.”
“Just a bit, though, if I know Ornenkai.”
Lierva laughed.
“You’ve been here a long time, longer than most of the others,” Hinev observed.
“Yes, I have,” Lierva agreed pleasantly.
“And yet you haven’t started to feel claustrophobic. Amazing.” Said Hinev.
“You can tell I don’t like feeling trapped, can you?” Lierva laughed.
“You don’t strike me as much of a disciplinarian, either.” Hinev added, with an air of indifference.
“Guilty.” She agreed. “I do whatever suits me, when I’m not following orders, and if I decided to leave Firien, I’d go, even if I couldn’t get a transfer. There’s always a need for pilots in the regional MSF posts.”
”Ah, but the Ephor War is over! And let’s hope there isn’t another one as long and bloody.” Hinev said, sighing.
“Yes, let’s hope so, but of course, there will always be another war to wage,” Lierva said, feeling blithe. “There are so many in the Federation who are dissatisfied. But to answer you, I guess I’d feel more claustrophobic out here in the provinces if there weren’t so much going on and so much to do. So many unending responsibilities. There just isn’t time to feel trapped when you’re always busy.”
“True.” Hinev nodded.
“You don’t seem surprised by my statement.”
“Tell me about Rihksehr Gerryls—do you know him?”
“Yes, of course.” Said Lierva. “He’s the one who’s been helping the engineers devise the atmospheric and biological systems aboard the ship. Seems he and Kiel concocted the idea of putting in the lyra forest.”
“So it was their idea.”
“Yes. Hinev, I’ve read your First Race Theory.”
“But you don’t agree with it, I suppose.”
“Well, I can’t say I don’t understand your motives for proving all humanoid races are of a common origin,” she laughed again, “considering how it might elevate the Kayrians’ social status on Seynorynael, but no, I don't disagree with your theory. I don't think your motives have anything to do with the truth of the matter itself.”
“Really.”
“Hey, anyone who’s worked out here on this project knows there’s something to the legend of the comet riders, or the coming of the Enorians some call them. And I may not believe hokey nonsense about proto-telepaths who can talk without words and move objects around at will, but I do know that there’s a lot out there that I don’t even pretend to understand, and your opinion is as good as anyone’s—better than most, since at least you have been out exploring the galaxy.”
Hinev sighed, suppressing laughter. They were approaching the entrance to Selesta, and slowed down.
Hinev turned a critical eye up to the hull.
“Celekar was supposed to have fixed the seams.” Hinev said in deprecation, but there was a note of falseness to his comment, as though he had said it merely to incite a reaction; he clearly didn’t care about what he was saying, but Lierva thought he did.
“He did his best.” She protested, shaking her head.
“He should have done better.” Hinev returned, unruffled. “He can still get to it, when he has the time.”
“You want everything to be perfect, don’t you?” Lierva asked.
“You don’t approve?” Hinev half-turned.
“I do. It has to be as close to perfect as we can get it.”
“However,” Hinev noticed, “there’s going to be a problem sealing up the last air lock when they bring the lyra forest on board. Such a sentimental notion.”
“I think it’s a good idea to bring the lyra forest on board, though.” Lierva disagreed.
“Ah, but there’s nothing to be gained by it.” Hinev said. “The forest isn’t necessary, not by any means. The atmosphere will be chemically artificially regulated in Selesta. There’s no need to bring the lyra aboard, which can’t even provide food for the next explorers.”
Lierva took a deep breath, trying to keep calm.
“Do you have any idea how infuriating you are?” She asked.
“Me? Why?” Hinev said with a small laugh.
“Do I have to go into it?”
“No, but I won’t understand you until you do.”
She sighed. “Does everything have to have a use for you? Why can’t it just look pretty?”
“You’re mad at me for some reason?”
“I just think you’re deliberately being difficult. Toying with me. Anyway, last I heard you and Kudenka thought the lyra forest was a good idea, so the explorers wouldn’t go crazy on board without any real scenery to enjoy while they’re floating forever in space.”
“So then, what conclusions do you draw of my real motives, then?”
“I have no idea.” Lierva said. “I don’t often draw conclusions.”
“You don’t?”
“I think a person should keep their mind dynamic and alive. You know—never let ‘what is’ contain you—”
“I seldom do.” Hinev laughed.
“And the same goes for everyone else.” Lierva continued. “I figure most people don’t always know what they’re saying or doing.”
“Well, Lierva, you may be right about that—”
“Right about what?” Kiel said, breaking from a group of passing engineers who had just come out of the museum.
“That you’re late, as usual.” Lierva told him with a hearty laugh.
Several minutes later, the technicians emerged from the museum. Celekar spotted Lierva talking to Kiel and a dark-headed man he didn’t recognize from behind.
Celekar lingered a moment, then headed towards them as the dark-headed man dismissed himself. Celekar’s eye stayed on Lierva; a frown took over the edges of his mouth, against his will.
Lierv
a. She was definitely under his skin.
Celekar couldn’t stop staring at Lierva. He could not admit even to himself that he was in love with her.
Meanwhile, Lierva's eyes followed the strange man who was making his way to the artifact museum. Kiel said something to her, and she suddenly left, heading across the assembled construction crews to the last gaping hole in the hull of Selesta that was still being used as an entrance for the large number of technicians.
"Who was that man Lierva was talking to?" Celekar asked in bare irritation, catching up to Kiel, who had begun to move in the same direction Lierva had taken.
Kiel laughed congenially, slowing for Celekar. Celekar’s only fooling himself, he thought. Everyone knows he would follow Lierva to Ishkur if she ever went back there.
"That was Fynals Hinev," Kiel said, in a nonchalant manner.
“Oh?" Celekar said, scratching his eyebrow. “I didn’t recognize him from behind. What's he here for—do you know?"
"Hinev has started looking for explorer candidates for the big explorer mission.” Kiel admitted, an uncomfortable look in his eyes that Celekar didn’t notice.
“So why is he talking to Lierva?”
Kiel laughed. “She is in charge of all of us MSF here.”
Celekar didn’t seem mollified. “He didn’t have to enjoy the conversation so much, though, did he?”
Kiel laughed, but his heart wasn’t in it.
“What’s wrong, Kiel?” Celekar asked, noting Kiel’s silence.
Kiel turned to Celekar.
“Hinev’s been trying to recruit me for the explorers.”
“Oh,” Celekar said, taking this in with equanimity. “But what about—”
“Calendra?” Kiel interrupted, thinking fondly of the woman he had come to love in the short time since he had met her in Firien City. “I don’t know. I’ve only known her a season, I know, but I don’t want to lose her. And she’s not MSF, not even trained for any kind of specialization that would make her a good explorer candidate. But Hinev keeps asking, and it isn’t getting any easier to tell him I don’t want to be an explorer.”
“Because you do.” Celekar laughed gruffly. “It is an honor being asked, isn’t it? You’d get to stay with Selesta, see where she’s going after all this effort. Have you told Kellar?”
“No,” Kiel admitted. “And I’m not going to, not until I decide for certain one way or the other.”
“But I thought you weren’t considering it because of Calendra.”
“Calendra,” Kiel sighed. “She’s the one insisting that I go.”
“I can’t say I’d like to be in your position.” Celekar said, after a moment. “So what did Hinev say to you just now?”
“Well, he said he’s working on finding a solution to my problem. I can’t imagine what it would be, but I’m willing to hear him out.”
“It’s hard to give up the opportunity, isn’t it?” Celekar said, with a stony expression; Kiel read behind it and saw that the rough-faced man was commiserating. “It would almost be easier if Hinev had never asked.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ll do things if we’re given the opportunity, but it might be better for our peace of mind if we never got the chance to do them at all. Ah, well, stop stewing about it.” He added, clapping a hand on Kiel’s shoulder. “It’ll be resolved soon enough, and we’ve got work to do.”
Celekar set his jaw and turned back to gaze at the Selesta.