Noriama: Chapter 7
Zuri Conde liked problems. She liked puzzles. When she was young, the first game she remembered playing was a jigsaw puzzle that lay on her mother’s clean floor. She loved turning the pile of colorful pieces into a complete picture. Like a sandcastle washing away in the surf, only backwards.
When she got older, her father gave her his entire collection of mystery novels. She read through them all in a single season, and saved up her money to buy more. She quickly became familiar with which novelists wrote real mysteries, where every clue and suspect were plainly observable to a clever reader; as opposed to cheap thrillers where the solutions were pulled out of the writer’s hat at the last second.
It was this love of solutions that drew her to computers. The process of writing code for advanced computer systems had a thrill all its own, as each line slipped into place like a piece of a puzzle.
Now, at the age of eighty-seven, Zuri was used to working alone. Not so much because of her natural inclination, which was solitude; nor because of her natural attitude, which was abrasive; but mostly because her work was fundamentally elite and personal — a natural byproduct of her skill coupled with the work’s natural complexity.
Her professor at Kinshasa University put it plainly to her one evening, as they shared a drink at the local bar.
“These days it takes five years of training and education to be good enough to work on a system as simple as personal computer. Twenty to deal with automated systems, and forty to work on anything more complex than that. Stick with it for more than forty years, and you’ll become one of…maybe a hundred people in the world who are qualified to do anything really important. You’ll be like the Sages and wise-women of ancient times; they’ll come to you with problems and accept anything that works. They won’t dare ask if you’re using the right computer language, or even glance at your code. They won’t want to know. As long as when they put something in, they get what they want out, they’re perfectly happy to let the box stay black.”
Her professor had paused then, his hands now necessary to finish the last of her beer before raising her hand to order another round. “Let me ask you something,” she continued when her hands were free again. “If you needed to print out numbers from x to y, how would you do it?”
Zuri remembered her hand stopping on the way to her glass. Was her professor serious? What sort of remedial question was that?
“Any of a thousand different ways, yes?” her professor continued with a grin. “do-while loops, if-then loops, Incremental matrices…you know already that every problem in coding has twenty different solutions, yes? It only gets worse the more you learn. The more complex the system, the more solutions you’ll find. When you get good enough, the only education you’ll ever have is studying someone else’s code who’s just as good as you. It’s like an old painter studying their contemporaries because there’s no other person around who has the faintest idea of what you do or how you do it.”
Her professor’s words had proven prophetic. After more than sixty years of computer coding, Zuri had learned how isolating being at the apex of her field could be. She didn’t work with anyone, because there was no one she could work with. At best, she could become part of a team that could let her do what she needed to do, surviving on weekly reports and results. When that happened, there was rarely any need for details. Her co-workers would simply sit back and wait for Zuri to do her job.
Before long, her focus shifted from the more practical and applied aspects of her craft, to the more esoteric and complex vanguard of the future: Training artificial intelligences.
In the modern world, technology had advanced to the point where bespoke programming was no longer practical. Life had become interconnected and modular enough that every available technology needed to interact with both fifty-year-old systems and bleeding-edge programs on a daily basis.
This new society laid bare one of the more complicated lessons to teach a computer: adaptability. It was one thing to program a computer to turn on the lights when a human-sized heat-source entered a room. It was another entirely to then move that computer’s attention to a different room, and have it recognize where the walls were without reprogramming the entire system.
Trained AIs could recognize walls, heat-sources, even when to turn on the lights without ever being told what these things even were.
It was a complicated process: seed algorithms were provided complex reward matrices and provided data-stimulus, either through sensors or already collated information. The stimulus was then adjusted, and submitted again. After weeks of this, the burgeoning AI could be tested, and their training adjusted as required.
In spite of their flexibility, the world kept changing, and once an AI had been trained, it was very difficult to teach it entirely new parameters. It was often more expedient to train an entirely new AI.
Simple AIs, sufficient for managing automated lights or thermostats, took weeks at the outside. More complicated AIs, those reserved for automated vehicles or similar complex operations, could take months.
The high end AIs of the Seven Nations had been trained for over thirty years. Zuri had hoped one day to be given permission to study them. It seemed unlikely, now.
As a computer expert and Advanced AI trainer, it was Zuri’s responsibility to manage and maintain the seperate AIs on the Croatoan.
First was, more or less, the Croatoan itself. The onboard AI monitored and controlled all the automated systems, keeping the Croatoan functioning and alerting its crew to any unforseen problems. It kept the CELSS working smoothly, handled the reactor and waste recycling, and generally ensured the Croatoan worked the way it was supposed to.
Second was the “brain” AI, a subsystem of the first. This AI was scanning the empty void of space as they traveled, tracking and measuring countless stellar bodies as they danced along their paths, including the OLCR relays themselves. It also managed communication between the relays, positioning the light-sail, releasing booster rings, and tracking the relative position of the Croatoan on its journey.
The last three AIs were Zuri’s charges; designated Red, Wolf, and Lemon. Specially programmed to be adaptive and flexible, it was Zuri’s duty to train each for the different situations they might encounter on Noriama. They each had their proscribed duties, of course, such as Wolf controlling the automated drones that would be sent to Proxima’s surface, but beyond that, Zuri had been given complete control, and no small amount of leeway.
The three AIs were fascinating to study, and half of Zuri’s time on the Croatoan was subjecting them to various tests and sandboxes, watching their artificial neurons flare and flicker as they made decisions. They branched and formed themselves through her ministrations and prunings like twisting topiary. She had never dealt with AIs so advanced.
The African Union had AIs, but rarely could the AU spare the time or energy to train them beyond relatively basic uses. Zuri had ended up applying to the AU space program, where they had a constant need for trained AIs to upload to research satellites, space probes, and data-collation centers. She had undergone the required training for space-operations, but she had never needed to leave the ground; that was part of the joy of computers. Everything she did was in cyberspace. Even her deafness hadn’t been a hindrance; New Bantu was one of the neo-languages that had a signing component. In fact, being deaf had been helpful in one respect: If she closed her eyes, she was effectively alone, with no distractions to disrupt her focus.
There was one time, however, when the team was under orders to not be alone. By official mandate, the four of them spent two hours of every sixteen hour wake-period seated around the tiny table on the CELSS deck, to socialize while they ate their two meals of 900 calories apiece. For the first few months it had been a quite uncomfortable experience, but now they were finally opening up to each other, in small ways at least. Zuri had even begun to start conversations.
The mess was one of the largest rooms on the Croatoan, it being one of only two rooms that was expected to have all four team-members in it at once, the first being the Crash-room. Even so, there was barely enough room for all of them. A small table and four tiny stools gave them just enough space to eat without knocking into each other, and the elaborate dispenser on the wall the only output of the Closed Ecological Life Support System, or CELSS.
They were all on ResCal diets; that was what the General had said. Even before the mission they were eating fewer calories than the recommended healthy amount. It was a hold over from the origins of the URC. Once the food-riots had spread after catastrophic weather conditions had decimated the world’s farmland, eating smaller amounts of nutrient- and mineral-rich foods was the only way to maintain a healthy global population.
The Croatoan’s meals were more unpleasant affairs. First was a brown and pasty square slab that tasted like salty bread. Next to it were two meatball sized orbs, one was pale, crumbled like old cheese, and tasted faintly of seaweed. The other was almost black, gelatinous, and tasted like sweet moss.
Zuri had gotten used to the taste and texture after only a few weeks. It was all there was to eat, after all, and it was as filling as a tiny meal could be. Minerals, nutrients, proteins, fiber…everything their bodies needed, and only what they needed.
Zuri reached out and tapped the table hard with her finger. When she saw she had their attention, she gestured at her meal and signed: “Which is which, again?”
“The brick is carbohydrates and fiber,” Kristiana said from across the tiny table. “The white orb is a protein-nutrient mixture, and the black one is a mineral-rich paste with a few essential fats. All perfectly balanced for keeping us healthy.”
“healthy, but not necessarily happy,” Zuri grimaced. “Well, I suppose the CELSS was not designed for our comfort.”
“Actually,” Victoria answered, “It has. Been designed for comfort, I mean.”
“How so?” Sughouri cocked an eyebrow.
Zuri watched as Victoria pursed her lips, nudging the white glob of food with her knuckle. “I’m not actually allowed to tell you.”
“Oh, come on,” Sughouri laughed. “You can’t do that to her.”
How thorough their conditioning had been. Zuri remembered the bright and energetic engineer laughing loud and long on Earth, her head snapping back and leaning away from the table. Now she bent forward, slowly, laughing into her chest. A far safer display of mirth; less likely to hit an important or fragile instrument.
“Do you know how it works?” Zuri asked.
“I know how to maintain it and fix it if something goes wrong,” Sughouri shrugged, “but there’s a lot of details I don’t know. It certainly doesn’t seem like there’s anything unhealthy about it. Care to fill us in, Victoria?”
“If she’s not allowed, she’s not allowed,” Kristiana said, cutting off discussion with her sharp tone.
“Fine. Can you at least tell us why we can’t talk about it?”
Victoria looked up. “Psychological health, and proper functioning of the team.”
“And this is threatened by knowing how our life-support works?” Kristiana frowned.
“It is,” Victoria answered, crossing her arms, “at least, that’s what Mission Central thinks. I think there’s more threat to social cohesion by keeping secrets, and I have final authority on such matters.”
“That’s true,” Kristiana shrugged.
“So how does it work?” Zuri asked, glancing back and forth between Victoria and Sughouri.
“Advanced recycling.” Sughouri gestured below. “It’s a self contained ecosystem down there. Carbon dioxide into oxygen, piss into water, shit into food. One neat little circle of life.”
“Hold up,” Victoria interrupted. “You can’t just put it like that.”
“What? What did I get wrong?”
“Nothing; you’re correct, it’s just incomplete. There are lots of kinds of artificial recycling and filtration systems, but the Croatoan’s CELSS is primarily biological. Our waste products are placed into a modified environment complete with bacteria, plant-life, even some tiny insect colonies capable of low-gravity survival. Our liquid, solid, and gaseous waste is food and air for them, and they process it into food, water, and air for us. It’s a concentrated form of the biological environment on earth.”
“Okay, so it’s a neat little circle of life?” Sughouri grinned.
Victoria grinned back. “Yes, but you need to explain the whole thing. Like I said before, it was designed that way to keep us comfortable about what we eat.”
Zuri thought about the thick biological soup that rumbled beneath their feet; tubes of miniature swamps. “That’s comfortable?” Zuri asked.
“Medically? Very much so.” Victoria chewed before continuing. “One of the most powerful emotions in human biology is disgust. It’s a powerful survival mechanism that keeps animals away from disease, poison, anti-social behaviors…Aversion is incredibly important to survival.”
“They were worried we’d be disgusted over eating recycled waste, you mean?”
“We shouldn’t even call it that.” Victoria took a deep breath. “I need to choose my words carefully here. See, technically, everything you’ve ever eaten was recycled through the Earth’s ecosystem. But no matter how carefully you explain that to someone, if they let their disgust at the idea of drinking and eating anything recycled win out, there is no bringing them back. That’s why the CELSS is so holistically biological. The idea of drinking filtered waste is more palatable when recycled by a tiny ecosystem of plants, evaporated fog, and artificial precipitation. Eating filtered waste is fine as long as it passes through insects, fungus, and plant-life first. It’s not efficient, but it works. We could actually filter the air and water and fertilizer far easier, quicker, and more efficiently with machines, but the yuck factor is so strong, we need to filter our waste through familiar concepts: A small biosystem of plants and microbes that eat the waste and excrete proteins that can be made into nutrients. The psychosomatic effects are well documented; recycled air smells foul when a machine is responsible. It’s perceived as fresh when plants are involved.”
“Well, this certainly doesn’t taste fresh,” Sughouri wrinkled her nose. “It barely tastes at all.”
“That’s our tastebud’s fault,” Victoria shrugged. “Our bodies evolved to crave certain flavors like salt and sugar, because that helped us survive in jungles and savannas. Long-term cellular health is more important to us now than being able to climb a tree to run from a tiger.”
Zuri drummed her fingers on the table for a moment before she noticed everyone staring at her. “Sorry,” she signed, “just thinking.”
“About what?”
She was thinking about a puzzle. “I understand why Sughouri knows how to fix the CELSS, that’s a practical necessity. But why tell Victoria about the psychological implications? Why not tell all of us?”
“Need-to-know?” Sughouri shrugged. “She should know about all the possible hazards she might need to help us with, right?”
“But keeping secrets causes problems too, right?” Zuri smiled at Victoria. “So why give you a secret to keep?”
Victoria gave a slow not. “I can think of only one reason, personally, and its somewhat comforting.”
“Well then, tell us what it is, why don’t you?” Sughouri grinned.
Victoria popped the last bite of her meal in her mouth. “Mission Central knew we’d need to maintain a personal and professional relationship, so in addition to our psychological conditioning, mandatory meal-period, relaxed physical relationship standards, and cabinets full of recreational drugs and entertainment…they provided us subjects for small-talk.”
Sughouri stretched as best she could in the cramped confines of the bunk. “Okay, be honest. Was this part of your medical exam?”
Victoria grinned as she started to replace her clothing. “If it was, I would certainly give you a very high score.”
“No, seriously,” Sughouri propped herself up on her arms, almost vaulting herself completely upright in the low gravity. “I know you’re ace. This was part of your official duties, or something, right?”
Victoria paused. “Ace means a lot of different things to different people. For me, sex just isn’t…a thing. It’s never more appealing or pleasurable for me than, say, rubbing my back. Some aces have a repulsion or aversion, but for me…” she shrugged.
“So this was medical,” Sughouri drifted back down to the cushion. “I’m hurt. Really, I am.”
“No you’re not,” Victoria slipped her pants back on. “You feel pretty good right now.”
“You know,” Sughouri pursed her lips, “I do think you are right. Well done.” She grinned, nudging her doctor with her thigh. “Not bad for sixty-four, eh? Young spring-chicken that I am?”
“You’re masterful,” Victoria spoke with such dry sincerity that Sughouri couldn’t help but laugh.
For a moment, they looked at each other.
“You don’t need to stick around for the afterglow,” Sughouri nudged Victoria again. “I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than stare at my sweaty body. Or is this part of the job too?”
“You want me to recite it to you?” Victoria nudged back. “Ten minutes of post-coital afterglow conversation, pertaining to but not limited to subjects outlined in section VII c, such as carnal performance, physical attractiveness, and performance quality of mission duties.”
“You’re joking,” Sughouri pulled a face. After a moment, she nudged Victoria again. “You are joking, right?”
Victoria winked.
Sughouri found Victoria adorable, really. Even though she was older than Sughouri — all of them were — there was a youthfulness about her, a passion that drove her beyond the sensible. It was endearing. “You were a First Responder, yeah?” Sughouri asked.
“Still am, technically,” Victoria answered.
“You moved around a lot, I bet. Going from one disaster to the next? Constantly on the move?”
“I think the longest I’ve ever been in once place since I started was two months in Honduras. An extensive training seminar for keeping my skills current. It was a nice vacation, of sorts.”
Sughouri bit her lip for a moment. “I grew up in a military family, you know. Never stayed in one place for longer than a year. My mother kept us moving back and forth across the planet, and after I joined up, I never stopped moving either. Even with the hibernation…I think this is the longest I will ever have lived in a single place since I was born.”
“Do you have a family?”
“Nah,” Sughouri shrugged. “Nothing permanent, anyway. Had a girlfriend before I left. Had to break it off.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Victoria paused again. Then: “So — if it’s not an embarrassing question — how, exactly, are we getting to Proxima?”
Sughouri blinked. “Sorry, say again?”
Victoria gave a gentle push, hovering for a second before gently drifting back down to her seat. “My briefing covers all the psychological and medical details, but the rocketry, astrophysics, computer-stuff…” she shrugged. “According to the Mission Plan, I don’t need to know any of it.”
“Well, you don’t need to know, I guess,” Sughouri grinned. “But still, you trusted them enough to get onto the Croatoan without knowing a thing about how it works?”
“Someone knew,” Victoria shrugged again. “That was enough for me.”
“Fair,” Sughouri nodded. “Okay, how much do you know?”
“I know I’m in the Croatoan right now, and the journey is going to take twenty-one years all told, though we’ll only be awake for three of them. I presumed the Croatoan just has a better Sunessen drive, like the one they used for the KAP.”
“Oh no, my goodness, no! Even our best dusty-plasma drive couldn’t get us to Proxima in twice the time we’re going to make.”
“What is dusty-plasma?”
Sughouri pursed her lips. “Long answer or short answer?”
“Short for now. You can tell me the long answer when I have trouble falling asleep.”
“Oh, dusty-plasma isn’t boring; this will knock your panties off. You ready? Okay. A standard nuclear rocket uses a nuclear reaction to generate heat, and then uses that heat to spit reaction mass out of the engine.”
“Reaction mass?”
Sughouri paused. Her whole career she had been able to divide people into two camps: the people who knew about space-travel and engineering, and those who didn’t. It was still unsettling to be in space and talking face-to-face with one of the latter.
She licked her lips. “Okay. To move forward, a rocket has to push something backward. That’s newton’s third law of equal and opposite reaction, right? Reaction mass is what is pushed backwards. Rocket fuel, more or less. But to get it moving fast enough to provide a good push…think of a steam engine, right? Fire heats the water, and steam flies out the rear of the rocket, pushing it through space.”
“I’m with you so far.”
“Good, because here’s the trick. Heating the water with fire is inefficient, right? Some energy gets lost. So why not let the fire be the reaction mass?”
“Now you’ve lost me.”
“So, nuclear fission heats up the rocket fuel and spits it out the back, but what if instead of rocket fuel, we spit the atoms that broke off in the fission process? See, the Sunessen drive held fragments of nuclear fuel in a chamber, and spun carbon filaments through the chamber causing a nuclear reaction. Only the atoms that broke off, instead of bouncing around and heating up rocket fuel, got fired out the rear of the engine at three percent of the speed of light! Far less fuel is needed to accelerate, which means a spaceship can travel faster to wherever it’s going. But even with the Sunessen drive, getting to Proxima b in twenty-one years would take insane amounts of fuel — so much so that there would be more fuel than ship — so the obvious answer was get rid of the fuel.”
Victoria frowned. “So how do we move, then, without fuel?”
“The OLCR. The Croatoan doesn’t have fuel, because it doesn’t have engines. It has sails. A light-sail, three hundred and twenty kilometers diameter.”
Victoria laughed. “I may be a doctor, but I know that space doesn’t have wind.”
“Well, in a way it does. Solar wind from the sun, for example, but that wouldn’t be enough to carry us all the way to Noriama in a reasonable time-frame. Instead, the OLCR is pushing us along with lasers.”
“How is that possible?”
Sughouri took a deep breath. “Oh-kay. Let’s see…light doesn’t have mass, but it does have speed, which means it has momentum, which means it has energy that can be transferred. The Croatoan’s light-sail can capture this energy and use it to push the ship towards Proxima b. But each separate relay in the OLCR can’t possibly provide enough energy. They only have old Chisaisan reactors, which can only put out a little more than a gigawatt each, at best. So, at regular intervals during the journey, the Croatoan is releasing small reflective disks behind us. The light-sail reflects the OLCR laser back to this disk, pushing it away from the Croatoan, but the disk in turn reflects the laser back to the light-sail, pushing the Croatoan again. Every photon from one of the OLCR’s lasers will hit the light-sail multiple times, multiplying the accelerative force of the laser. Then, once each booster ring has accelerated too far away from the Croatoan to be effective, another is dropped, and so on.”
“And that’s really all it takes to get us to Proxima b so fast?” Victoria was incredulous. “Reflected light is that much more powerful than a nuclear engine?”
“Well…define ‘powerful.’ The OLCR gives us acceleration of less than four percent of Earth’s gravity, but it’s constant. We’ll be accelerating halfway to Proxima, and that’s a long way. We’re going to reach almost four-tenths the speed of light before we start releasing booster rings from the front of the ship, using both them and the OLCR relays ahead of us to slow us down.”
Victoria thought for a moment. “But if the booster rings and the Croatoan push each other away, doesn’t each OLCR relay also push itself away from us? Won’t they get out of position?”
“Oh, well done!” Sughouri clapped her hands. “Yes, they very much will. That’s why each relay down the line is also using its lasers on the adjacent relays. It’s one big conga-line of pushing and adjusting, all to keep the relays in relative stationary position.”
“That must take incredible amounts of power.”
Sughouri winked. “It certainly does. Even with fusion reactors, booster rings, and beamed power from Earth, we’re putting a huge strain on the relay reactors.”
“Huh,” Victoria nodded. “I guess that explains it.”
“Explains what?”
Victoria shrugged. “I’ve never been in space before. I grew up watching old science fiction shows and movies, and I always thought there would be more to do. But we’re not pilots, or navigators, or space-sailors. We’re maintenance crew on an intergalactic elevator.”
Sughouri paused. “You know, that’s a good way of looking at it, really. I handle any mechanical problems, Zuri takes care of the computers, and you take care of both of us.”
“I’ll be honest,” Victoria scratched at her chin, I’m a little worried about my lab. I’ve saved lives in smaller tents with less equipment, but I don’t think I’ll be able to take care of more than two people at once, and it’ll be a huge risk to try even that."
Sughouri waved a hand. “Well, you’ll only ever have to worry about the four of us, so no problems there, right?”
“What about the colonists?” Victoria asked. “I just think it’s a pretty poor showing for a search-and-rescue mission.”
“Ha!” Sughouri laughed. “This isn’t a search-and-rescue, darling. It can’t be. Either Noriama has cut itself off from the earth entirely, in which case we won’t be welcome; or the whole colony is dead — in which case this isn’t a rescue. It’s an Archaeological Dig.”
Pain.
Kristiana had gotten used to it. Or rather, she corrected herself, it had become familiar. The dull ache at the lower base of her skull had become a part of her life, like any other chronic pain. Bothersome, unpleasant, and regrettable; but inescapable and therefore manageable.
She could live with the pain because she would never live without it.
Her eyes squeezed tight, she ran her fingers over the tender row of scars along her hair-less head. The pain should have faded over fifteen years ago. The doctor had said it was common among Netters to feel pain after the operation, it was suffered by over forty percent of all newly connected Netters. They still weren’t sure exactly why it happened, but there were theories. She could look them up anytime with her new connection to the world. Not to worry, it always faded.
Almost always.
In the early days, implants could go wrong. Errors in the wetware, no larger than a micron, could flood the brain with a deluge of information, causing seizures, permanent nerve damage, or comas. But these accidents were negligibly rare these days, and the chance of getting broken glass in your eye was no reason not to wear glasses, was it? If your chips were properly constructed and implanted by a reputable surgeon, the chances of anything going wrong were virtually nil.
Virtually nil, however, is not nil. Less than .03% of all Netters suffered from chronic pain, and Kristiana was one of the unlucky ones. She could manage with powerful medications, and regular meditation.
Kristiana took a deep breath as the throbbing pain surged again.
There had never been a time when Kristiana hadn’t been drawn to becoming a Netter. It was an alluring world-view; when someone’s eyes were bad, you put on glasses. If your heart was bad, add a pacemaker. If your brain- or body-chemistry needed adjusting, take medication.
Then, some efficiency minded movement wondered why they still used external devices to access the internet. The brain wanted information, told the arm to type out the commands on the computer, which found the information, and then delivered it through a monitor to the eyeballs and back to the brain. Why not cut out the middle-men? Why not sidestep the arms, the computer, and the eyes? What was so wrong with that?
It had been an invaluable asset. Having direct mental access to any appropriately programmed database meant she knew things without having to learn them. Advanced systems with direct interfaces could be controlled just by thinking about them. It was a pit-stop on the road to a true melding of the human mind and computers.
As far as the mission was concerned; the Croatoan had ten peta-bytes of information in a databank for her to remotely connect to; a collection of scientific and historical data that could supplement the needs of the team whenever required. With the aid of her Netter implants, Kristiana was effectively a super-genius.
That alone would have made her useful, but access to the largest library in history would have meant little without the grounded common sense and analytical talents that made her irreplaceable, and suited for the role of commander. Officially, because Sughouri had more astronomic flight-time logged than the others, she was appointed second-in-command.
“Kristiana?”
Victoria was outside. Kristiana’s head throbbed as she sat up.
“Yes?”
Victoria stuck her head into the tiny hole, the claustrophobic cocoon of white plastic. There was barely enough room for one person.
“Are you ready to go over the Med report?”
Damn. Now of all times? “I can check the files on the computer later,” she said, before immediately correcting herself. “No, I know; it’s important. I’m still not used to the…purposeful inefficiency of it all. Carry on.”
Kristiana waited patiently while Victoria read through the medical state of the team, comparing her verbal report with the digital information buried in the Croatoan’s computer. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Victoria to be honest; she couldn’t help it. As soon as Victoria recited a stat, Kristiana’s brain went searching for it and found it through her Netter link. “Everything sounds good, then,” she said once Victoria had finished.
“Ye-es…” Victoria hedged. “How are you doing, tonight?”
Kristiana’s head was pounding. “There is no tonight.”
“I’m sorry?”
“It’s an arbitrary distinction, a manufactured time table to soothe the confused screaming of our lizard brains. We demand schedules, regularity, and so we construct systems of predictability and force our bodies to adapt.” That was what bodies did, was adapt. Pain faded as the body healed. Skin sealed, blisters faded, scars remained as imperfect reminders. Pain was an alarm. An alert. It told the body that something was wrong. But there was nothing wrong. The best doctors she could afford had told her nothing was wrong. If it was anything, it was probably psychosomatic.
Victoria was still watching her, waiting.
“Are you alright?”
Kristiana brought her hand to her eyes, rubbing her temples. Had she been getting enough sleep? Lack of sleep sometimes made the pain worse. She would ask Sighouri to double check her sleep-capsule to make sure it was functioning properly. “I’m sorry. My mind was just wandering. I’m fine. Why?”
“Been getting enough sleep?”
Kristiana cocked an eyebrow. “We just went over the crew stats, didn’t we? You know I have.” Sleep was very closely regulated. They had run tests and pieced together the perfect schedule. Weekly physicals with Victoria made doubly sure, as hormone levels were measured, blood-pressure checked, and the bio-markers of a healthy and well-rested individual checked off.
Victoria nodded slowly. “There’s a difference between how it is and how it feels. You been tired at all? Groggy?”
“No,” Kristiana rubbed her temples again. They had just gone over her vitals, and she was fine. It was just the pain.
Victoria watched her for a moment before uncrossing her arms. “Can I ask you something? What did it feel like when we got out of range of the Net? You were disconnected from the world net, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
For a moment, Victoria stood calmly, and then gave a small smile. “Doctor’s orders. I’m pulling rank. For the good of the mission, I order you to tell me how you are feeling.”
Sometimes it was sharp and stabbing. That was worrying. For most of her life it had been thick and aching, rather than pointed at the top of her spine. A quick stroll through the countless data files on medical issues revealed it was probably nothing. If the sharp stabbing lasted longer than a few seconds, she might have needed to bring it to Victoria’s attention, but not yet.
“It felt…like my thoughts shrank. My mind collapsed.”
“Go on.”
“I’ve gone off the grid before, I’ve separated from the Net before — we call it a vacation — but that doesn’t mean I enjoy it.” She paused for a moment, collecting the words to describe it. “It feels…cramped.”
It wasn’t exactly a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth. It wasn’t just that her mind felt restrained. It felt like she had been separated from something large. She simply wasn’t whole.
“Well, your stats are within the margins…Let me supply you with a couple psychostimulants to —”
“No,” it was out of her mouth before Victoria could finish. “No, that won’t be necessary.”
Victoria’s brow furrowed. “Are you sure? Prolonged psychological stress could cause significant problems for the mission.”
Kristiana knew, like she knew the ambient temperature, exactly how many psychostimulants sat in the med-lab’s cabinets. She knew how many analgesics there were. She knew that someday during the mission she would need to take them, to numb the pain so she could work at her best, but until then…
The supply could last if she rationed. She couldn’t build a tolerance, not now. To become dependent on a finite resource could doom the mission before they even arrived at Noriama.
“No, don’t bother. It’ll pass. Save it for if I really need it.”
“How will I know you need it?”
“If I endanger the mission.”
Victoria’s eyes narrowed. “I still don’t quite know what to do with you, Kristiana. I can’t tell if you’re a cynic or just a bad patient.”
“It could be both,” Kristiana smiled. “Is that everything?”
“How are you feeling otherwise? No anxiety? Claustrophobia?”
“My physical turned out okay, didn’t it?”
“You passed, but if you’re feeling any extra stress about something, I want you to tell me about it.”
“As a physician? Or as a psychiatrist?”
Victoria smiled back. “Kristiana, for the next twenty years, there’s no discernible difference.”
Once Victoria left, Kristiana returned to her rest-couch, and turned off the light, to help with the pain. She closed her eyes and ran through the ship-rotation procedure that would take place next week.
In three weeks. She would only be awake for one of them.
The most important thing was to never complain. Never acknowledge. Ignore it, and sap it of its power. If you paid attention to the pain it would retaliate tenfold. It was like a mosquito-bite. You couldn’t scratch. You had to ignore. Distract. Avoid.
Never tell anyone, because if they knew they would try to help, and there was no help. The best doctors couldn’t help without severing half of her brain from her body, leaving her a helpless mess. That was unacceptable, and besides, she could handle the pain.
After ten minutes of study, she took a deep breath and emptied her mind. Meditation sometimes helped more than pills. She had become quite skilled as silencing her uncomfortable brain. Sometimes she spent hours sitting alone, thinking of nothing.
She could handle the pain by herself. Alone.