Noriama: Chapter 1
Sometimes, it’s the little things.
For example: when Michael Donnahill was seven, he saw the 2090 eclipse as it blacked out the sky over the English Isles of the EU, what was once called Great Britain before the food riots. He sat on a grassy hill on what his grandfather still called the Isle of Wight, surrounded by thousands of onlookers as they all stared up into the sky, wearing their thin black glasses.
It was moderately cloudy that day, but everyone could still see the dim burning disk as it was eaten away, sliver by sliver, behind the thick fog of clouds. Michael watched as the world grew darker and darker still, his heart racing as night fell faster and faster, until 4:56 on the twenty-third of September was as dark as midnight in winter.
Michael looked up at the burning circle of the totality and saw the empty void that filled the space where the sun once shone. He saw the hollow hole where there once had been a ball of flame. He stared deep into the abyss of cloudy darkness where there had once been the nuclear explosion that gave the planet life, knowing that if he took off the carefully constructed glasses from his eyes, his eyes would be burned by that hidden flame
He couldn’t look away.
His parents never understood why he had cried so loudly before the sun started to re-emerge. They chalked it up to fear of the dark, and soothed his tears with the lies adults always told their children: He was safe, there was nothing to fear.
The sun will never go away.
If he had been asked, Michael Donnahill would not have remembered that day on the Isle of Wight, almost fifty years ago. At fifty-eight years old, there was much Michael didn’t remember about his youth; little pieces of memory that had flaked away like dry skin. Things that had been important to him at the time had long since been forgotten.
If he was reminded of the eclipse and pressed further, he would have shrugged and said that no, he did not believe it was a formative event in his life. He had always been fascinated by the stars and the sun. Astronomy was his passion, always had been, and really; could anyone say anything about the children they once were that didn’t sound patronizing and dismissive? No human survives fifty years without changing who they are as a person, likely several times.
And because of who Michael was, he wouldn’t have thought any more about it. Instead, he would have focused his attention on the unfortunate future of the European Union Space and Astronomy Association, of which he was head director.
It was an unpleasant future, and inescapable, but he could not stop thinking about it, like he found his fingers inadvertently returning to an itchy scab or mosquito bite.
He had thought about the future all through his morning shower, his tiny breakfast of toast and the last of his butter ration. He thought about it as he brewed his tea and poured it into his travel-cup, and walked all the way down the stairs in his apartment building. He thought about it while he slipped his ID into the train-station kiosk, while he was pulled aside in a random check, and while he jostled with the rest of the commuters to find a spot to stand on the train.
He thought about it as the train flew on magnetized tracks all the way to Oxfordshire.
Michael rubbed his eyes with a gnarled hand as he stepped off the train. The tea in his other hand shook as commuters brushed past him, rushing to get indoors before the dark clouds opened up above their heads. Michael looked up, ignoring the pain in his neck. They still had time. After fifty years, Michael had learned the difference between a cloud that was about to rain and a cloud that was just hot air.
Moving among the sea of commuters, he exited the station and climbed aboard the shuttle-bus for a shorter and bumpier ride to the EUSAA campus.
He forced himself to swallow a mouthful of hot tea. He had wanted coffee, but it was the end of the month, and he had used up his allotted ration already. Tea cost so much less these days anyway, only the cost of heating the water, really. Coffee required an extra energy ration to pay for the roasting, and there wasn’t a single farm in the area who thought coffee beans worth cultivating, so there were the transport and import taxes as well…
He pressed his eyes again with his hand. As head of the EUSAA, his entire life was filled with cost. Every gram of weight on a satellite, every second using the High Water Observatory, every tested prototype, every equation crunched…it all cost. Money, energy, propellant, favors, his entire life was devoted to squeezing the most efficient possible solutions with limited resources.
Tea was fine. It would get him to the office. Besides, his office manager never drank coffee; perhaps he could trade a ration with her.
His office manager’s smiling face, all wrinkles and teeth, flashed in Michael’s mind. He pressed his eyes with his hand again. His head was pounding, either from last night’s news, or from the copious drinking he had done afterwards to cope. Whatever the reason, The EUSAA needed a director with a clear head, if not clear vision to get them through these latest budget cuts, and he would not be that director today.
At last, the campus came into view. It had been one of the symbols of the EU Reformation. The European Space Agency had been absorbed into the largest research and development plan the world had ever seen, only to be reformed less than a year later as the EUSAA, with new offices and buildings built over what was once the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus.
In his first few years at the EUSAA, Michael had looked up at the campus buildings every day as he walked past. Designed in the finest Futurist style, they were perfectly white with curved walls, outfitted with solar panels designed with the strictest efficiency standards in mind. The buildings could withstand hurricanes, storm-force winds, earthquakes, and wildfires.
The buildings held promise in them, a hope for the future. No contract could have been as binding as the design of the EUSAA buildings. They promised a future where humanity no longer had to search for exotic and esoteric solutions to the problems they had given themselves. The planet would heal, and so would the many nations. It was hope and apology wrapped up in crystalline concrete and tri-bonded steel.
Now, Michael didn’t bother looking up. After his second year, he realized just how much that promise had been worth.
It wasn’t that there hadn’t been solutions; the energy-rationing program had been simple and effective, if stifling. Scientific advances both in fusion technology and advanced composite materials meant that pollutants in the air and water were dwindling every year. Capitalism was choking its last gasp in the poorer countries, and crime was dropping while lifespans grew year after year. Extreme Weather Events were, while still common, manageable. For the first time in years, the people of earth were daring to hope.
But Michael knew the difference between real hope and soothing bromide, and as far as he was concerned, the planet had one problem it was simply unwilling to face. And after his phone-call last night, that didn’t seem to be changing any time soon.
An unfamiliar face shook Michael free from his thoughts. There was a new guard at Station Two, the gate closest to Michael’s office. She shouldered her rifle as he approached and took his offered ID card with a formality Michael hadn’t seen in years. The young woman carefully inserted the card into the nearby reader, and the door behind her clicked open with a buzz that scraped the air like a saw.
“Good morning, Dr. Donnahil,” the guard smiled as he took back his card.
“Who’d you piss off to get assigned here?” he asked, shoving the card back into his pocket. He tried to smile, to show he was joking, but he wasn’t certain he had managed any more than a sneer.
She blushed, her smile vanishing as she pulled her rifle back to her chest. “I requested the duty, actually, sir.”
Michael felt his cheeks begin to burn. “I’m no sir. I’m a civilian.”
“Military conduct states civilians can be called sir, they just aren’t saluted,” her smile twitched back into place. “Sign of respect, sir.”
Respect. What had he done to deserve it? All his work, his efforts, his struggle to get the United Regional Council to hear his petitions, what had they mattered?
Any other day, he might have felt heartened at the idea that there were people out there who still caught a glitter in their eye at the thought of outer space, but not today.
The elevator gave a quick chirp as the doors closed, reading Michael’s card from inside his pocket and preparing to take him to his assigned floor.
If he had been younger, born perhaps of that young soldier’s generation, he might have found his youthful rebellion in rejecting the dismissive pessimism and cynicism of his parent’s generation. Instead of despair, he would have spent hours searching for loopholes, alternatives, and any Hail Marys he could think of.
But Michael was old, and any youthful optimistic rebellion he might have embraced had been beaten out of him long ago. Last night’s phone call had only been the latest in a long line of disappointments.
The EUSAA’s offices had been state of the art almost twenty years ago. Now, they were relics better suited for a museum or hobbyist’s basement than the EU’s center for research on the observable universe.
Six years ago, Michael had been allowed to tour the Seven Nation’s unified space task force. He had been cautioned by politicians and fellow scientists alike that the Seven Nations might have set up a Potemkin lab to enthrall visiting dignitaries, but Michael was delighted all the same. He had seen rooms full of super-computers churning full speed, tracking the movements of stars hundreds of light years away, inspecting fluctuations in radiation, and monitoring thousands of different radio bands for any pattern or inconsistency. The wonderful sights had filled Michael’s head with countless possibilities, if only the EU could get its head out of its collective ass, and give the EUSAA some damn funding!
His official report had been glowing in regards to the Seven Nation’s obvious support for their space division. He had hoped a sincere and honest admiration for a foreign power would inspire the EU to allocate more resources for his struggling department, but it turned out to do more harm than good.
‘The Seven Nations,’ the return letter had read, ‘under the provisions of the Kwanso pact, are under obligation to share any and all information and research they obtain through their facilities in New Nagasaki. As such, it would not be prudent for the EU to waste resources on performing research that is already being undertaken by our allies.’
And then what happened? Michael pressed his forehead again as he took another swallow of his tea. Not one year later, the Seven Nations revealed their damn Chisaisan reactor. A fully functional pollywell fusion reactor capable of delivering a full Gigawatt of energy at a fraction of the size and for a fraction of the fuel of any other nuclear reactor on the planet. That invention alone made the Seven Nations the strongest member of the entire United Regional Council.
Requests for the technology were denied. Protests were lodged and immediately quelled after the Seven Nations invoked the Military-Use clause in the Kwanso treaty. Fusion was a remarkably large power-source, after all, and a rogue nation could, with only a little tinkering, turn such a reactor into a weapon capable of destroying half of Asia. The Seven Nations were entirely within their rights to deny the signers of the Kwanso pact access to their research.
So, with the moronic instinct Michael had come to expect, the EU reduced the EUSAA’s funding even further, dumping as much as they could into their pet research agencies in hopes of catching up with the Seven Nations — because what was the point of pointing more telescopes into space, never mind the gigantic fusion reactor that the Earth orbited once every year. What possible use could there be in studying that?
The elevator doors hissed open, and Michael stepped out onto the twelfth floor. No one was around, as usual. Michael always came to the office early, but even if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have expected to see very many people. Two years ago the EUSAA had still been a bustling office space with scientists and mathematicians working on formulae to improve their ancient rocket technology, and making some progress…
Before the Seven Nations surprised them again, this time with their Quan-Yi 6 rocket and its new Sunessen drive being tested off the coast of Unified Korea. A dusty plasma drive, the Sunessen was useless for launching anything into space, but with an exhaust velocity of fifteen thousand kilometers per second, once it got there…
Of course, anything that could launch radioactive particles at such speeds had possible military uses, so the Seven Nations weren’t letting anyone catch a glimpse of their research. EU scientists had flipped their collective minds, spending months scrabbling to find out how these foreign wizards had managed to do what the best European scientists had claimed was still decades away.
You think that would have been enough of a wake up call, but no. Over the next two years the EUSAA had had its funding cut again and again until entire floors of their buildings were staffed by two or three people. Departments were phased out, pushed into other floors, projects were abandoned, and a great many hard working dutiful employees were fired. Every scrap of funding went to advanced physics and chemical laboratories as the EU struggled to catch up.
And last night…
God, he had been so angry. He had ranted and raved on the phone, torturing the poor messenger who had done no greater sin than informing an old friend of what was coming tomorrow. It was touching, in a twisted way; better to learn the bad news with someone, then alone in a dark office.
He was not ordinarily a heavy drinker — alcohol made him more sleepy than anything else — but that hadn’t stopped Michael from drinking a full bottle of wine after ending the call, and then polishing off the rest of his piss-quality scotch. He hadn’t stopped ranting, even with no-one to hear it.
Michael pushed through the door into his office. It was larger than it should have been, given their funding, but the EUSAA buildings were owned by the state; they either got used, or they rotted away. He flicked the switch next to the door, turning his window clear.
His quartz desk sparkled, even in the dim cloud-covered sun. Piles of old printed paperwork lay stacked next to metal cabinets. His chair sat right where he had left it, shoved to the side to give him room to pace. He couldn’t think properly without moving.
Michael set his tea down on desk and turned on his screen. A few key-strokes later and he was staring at a blank office-memo, struggling to find the words.
What words were there? When he had been appointed Director of the EUSAA, twenty-one years ago, there had been a party. Everyone was so excited about the wonderful future that lay ahead for the association. Now, he had to tell his remaining staff that more than half of the whole EUSAA was going to be phased out in the coming year.
The EUSAA had taken up most of Michael’s adult life. He had studied in Germany, did a research fellowship in the African Union, and had headed projects, conferences, and space-missions all over the world. He had spent two years in the Southern Americas, the only place still relatively free from light pollution, at the High Water Observatory. He had helped design and build the New Brunswick Telescope, currently the earth-based stellar telescope with the widest field of view on the planet. He had done more than most astronomers twice his age, and he was only fifty-nine.
He felt almost ninety.
“Mr. Donnahill?”
Michael blinked and looked up from his desk. His office manager stood in the doorway, her normally unconstrained smile limp and tired. Did she suspect? She must have. She was a clever woman, able to keep her eyes and ears open without ever appearing to eavesdrop. She was a consummate professional, making sure everything ran smoothly without ever drawing attention to herself. A less attentive boss might have never known she was the reason everything just seemed to work.
“Yes, come in,” he pressed his hand to his eyes again. The faint hope of a fresh pot of coffee brewing in the kitchen gave his voice strength. “You’re here early.”
“Yes sir,” she gave a sad smile. “There’s a call from Brussels; Representative Seidel. Thought you should know.”
The bottom fell out from Michael’s stomach.
She must have seen the heartbreak in his face. “How bad is it?” He could see the faint despair in her eyes, tinted with regret. She had joined the EUSAA only two years ago, a spot of hope in an otherwise hopeless time. What was her husband’s name? Michael suddenly felt incredibly guilty for not remembering.
“Get back to your work,” Michael gave a quick smile. “I’ll send out a memo in a few minutes.”
She nodded and left again. It was a horrible thing to do — she probably had very little work to get back to — but Michael couldn’t cry in front of her, and he had no doubt he soon would.
He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t say goodbye in a memo. Really, did he even want to tell everyone in a memo? They were his people; he wouldn’t let them down hear any terrible news without being there for them. He would wait until everyone had arrived, settled in, prepared for the day, and then call everyone in to a meeting. Tell them all, face to face. Give them the respect that the EU wasn’t giving them.
His eye wandered to the phone-icon on his computer. Antje had called him. She was being there for him.
But he didn’t want to speak to her. It was unfair, but some small part of him blamed her for the budget cuts. Even after everything they had done together, and with her being his strongest supporter. They would never have gotten as far as they had if it hadn’t been for her.
But there was no other person he could blame. Well, no, that wasn’t quite true. The fact was there were too many; Bureaucrats, politicians, and laypeople who couldn’t see space the same way Michael could; but he couldn’t blame them all, so instead he had to blame Antje, The one person in the EU who had been as inspired by his dream as he was.
It wasn’t fair to her, he knew. She had gone to bat for him so many times throughout his career, but in so doing had become his unofficial liaison between the EU politicians and bureaucrats. Whenever his budgets were cut or his proposals denied, she had always been the one to give the bad news. As much of a friend as she was, Antje was the face of his pain.
After a moment of resting the heel of his hand against his brow, he accepted the direct connection to Representative Seidel’s office.
“Michael,” her face was tired, but warm. “It’s good to see you again.” Her eyes wrinkled as she smiled, shifting in her chair to better face her own computer.
Michael ran a hand through his white wisps of hair. “I suppose you’re calling about the budget?”
Her face fell immediately, concern and regret replacing the crinkled smile. “I heard. I’m sorry we couldn’t do more.”
Michael bit back his bitter reply and gave a sharp nod. “Seems to be a pattern, with us.”
“Maybe so,” Antje nodded. “Have you seen the final numbers?”
“No, I was just given a nod. I was told to prepare for less than half of what we asked for.”
“That’s about right,” a tint of anger leaked through Antje’s voice. It was a small reminder that, in spite of her place in the EU’s bureaucracy, if there was anyone who was an ally to his ideals, it was Antje. “Do you know your numbers? What can you keep doing with that level of funding?”
“The weather,” Michael shrugged. “That’s about it. And half the time we’ll just be looking out the window.”
“Just say it’ll rain. You’ll be right more often than not.”
In spite of everything, she could still make him smile. “When are you coming up here next? We could share a pint? Reminisce about the good old days of us versus the world?”
“That sounds like fun. Why don’t you come to Brussels? Are you free today?”
Michael blinked. “Today? I…that’s quite sudden, isn’t it? I have a lot of work to do, dealing with the bad news and all.”
“Come anyway.”
Michael’s nervous fingers began to twitch. “Sorry, I’m afraid I can’t. Even if I didn’t have to work, my travel rations are out for the month. We’ll need to wait for next week.”
“No need to worry. I’ll take care of the rations.”
“Are you sure? I’d need to fly; it’s expensive. Are you sure you have enough rations to —”
“Special waiver.”
Michael opened his mouth, and then closed it again.
“Special waiver?”
“I’ll fast-track it. You’ll just have to worry about the weight-cost, if you can manage that?”
Michael leaned back in his chair. Special waivers were for major political conferences and important governmental consultations. The EU would never approve, much less fast-track one for just a friendly get-together.
“I…can.” Michael licked his lips. “When?”
“Oh, how about you come by my office at two-thirty? Keep your ticket and I’ll reimburse your weight-cost when you get here.”
Michael did a quick calculation in his head. If he left immediately, he could just about make it. “I…suppose I’ll be there.”
“Good!” Antje’s smile bloomed again. “Be at New Bath Airport in an hour. I’ll make sure there’s someone there to meet you.”
“Antje,” Michael interrupted before her face vanished from the screen. “Can you…tell me what this is about?”
Her smile flickered as she shrugged. “Honestly? I don’t know. Do you know anything about deep-earth mineral reports?”
“Not a thing.”
“Me either.” Antje’s face faded as she ended the call.