A Visitor to the Future - 14 - A Ladder into the Void
"Extreme sports? Like what?" I asked.
Sarkona took a moment to stretch and gave a little side-to-side head-bobbing motion at that. "Ehhh. Not my preference personally but there are quite a few groups who do risky sports. No safety equipment - like free mountain climbing, valley running, that sort of thing. I've never understood it myself as virtual reality sets are pretty good at replicating that sort of thing."
I thought of the adrenaline junkies of my own time - at least some things never change.
"Anyway, let me have a go at Contact before we move on!"
Sarkona's final time was a respectable fifty-eight seconds. To my untrained eye they moved in the same sort of way as Aln'ten had - and I was surprised at the end that their time was slower. They clearly enjoyed the workout, and as they led me deeper into the ship with I found their vigour infectious.
"I figured we'd go see the bridge next," they explained, "There won't be anyone to talk to there, but the navigation sphere is something you'll want to see."
Rung after rung I climbed through the ship, now feeling a little more confident in making larger leaps and trying to use my feet wherever possible. We went past what looked like small warehouses, water purification equipment, a completely sealed cube with slightly rounded edges and all manner of things that looked industrial in nature but I couldn't even guess what they did. Whenever we encountered another passenger they gave us a wave and a smile, which I did my best to return.
"Here we are," said Sarkona, pointing toward another airlock door. They waved a hand over a sensor at the side of the door and it began to open, turning to me to explain. "There are access controls for this room - but anyone on the ship who is of age can get inside. The lock is mostly to prevent mischievous young children - thankfully there are none on the ship at the moment!"
We floated into the airlock. The interior door opened almost immediately, revealing a spherical room which reminded me of a submarine. Many of the surfaces of the room were lined with all manner of buttons, panels, and switches, and there were four chairs mounted on gyroscopes to allow a full range of movement. There were two other hatches at either side of the room.
"Almost everything in here is analog - just in case there were some sort of mass failing of the ship's electronics systems. But the Consortium is very, very good at contingency plans and redundancy. The ship would have to be hit full-on by some massive electromagnetic interference to even have a chance at disabling its electronics. There are three backup units on the ship - those are the large cubes you saw earlier - and there's a relay drone which tails the ship at a distance, not to mention the rescue drones and other safety equipment on board. More redundancy than some of my most resilient projects!"
"Isn't that a little paranoid?"
"Yes and no. Yes - it is an extremely high degree of caution that is unnecessary for most citizens. No - in that the Consortium has to govern a whole system of citizens and in something that large something is bound to go wrong somewhere. So layered protections that address issues from many different angles are very sensible. Now, this way!"
Sarkona led me to one of the side hatches, and we emerged into what seemed like a ladder leading into a pitch black sphere of nothingness. Sarkona climbed the ladder and I followed suit, both of us perching at the top. I looked around me and saw nothing - whatever the wall was made of, it was absorbing any light perfectly. I was somewhat unnerved - looking into the deep darkness, my eyes threw patterns of colour across the surface much like closing my eyes.
"This is the navigation sphere. It... well, why don't I let it speak for itself."
Sarkona gestured with one arm and the inky darkness about me began to fill with faint pinpricks of light, which began to glow brighter and brighter. I began to realize they were stars. I gasped as bright patterns and stellar sights began to make themselves clear - this was the night sky as it was from within it - a view untouched by light pollution or an atmosphere. More perfect even than the view I'd had at the front of the ship - for now there was no glass between me and space itself.
With another gesture our perspective began to shift, and my inner ear protested slightly due to the illusion of movement. Thankfully I'd had a lot of practice silencing it today and I soon adjusted. The stars moved very slowly - they must have been very far away. Sarkona's arm appeared over my shoulder, pointing somewhere down below me.
Earth - but not alone. The Moon was visible too and as we came closer, both scaled up to the size of a basketball and hung in front of me. At this distance I could see the lights of cities on Earth and even some on the Moon. And as I blinked I could pick out tiny specks of light orbiting around Earth itself.
"Space habitats," said Sarkona, anticipating my question, "Thousands of them around Earth."
There were definitely differences between Earth as I had known it and the view in front of me. The ice caps seemed smaller, and the coastlines of familiar places misshapen in places. There were desert areas, like the Sahara, that seemed larger. It was like running into a friend again years later - it seemed like the Earth had aged in my absence.
But it was still Earth. I could have stayed watched that view alone for an age, but Sarkona had other plans, pointing toward a distant spot in the ocean, near Africa. "That's where Anchor is - in the Gulf of Guinea. We'll be seeing it next week." Then the view began to move again, and Earth began to diminish into the distance, shrinking until I blinked and lost it.
Then, Mars. We approached the planet from the dark side first, and the tiny sparkling lights that had marked the cities of Earth were visible on Mars too - just in far lesser quantities. We rotated around and I could see the beauty of the red planet in a way I'd never imagined - we were so close that I could pick out individual valleys and canyons, and differences in the height of the terrain. Sarkona pointed out Olympus Mons to me - the largest mountain on Mars looked like just a bump from our perspective.
"Here's something worth checking out at some point," said Sarkona, pointing out another area as the view roamed over the surface. "The ruins of the old Mars capital in Kasei Valles. An important historical site if you want to learn about the Consortium."
We didn't linger on the surface for long, and Sarkona adjusted the view so we were hanging in orbit. There were the same specks as Earth's orbital habitats - but there was also a much larger silhouette which looked much like a huge tube. We began to get closer, and I could see the dark grey substance which formed its outer shell. I leaned in, and could see that it was slowly rotating - effectively rolling lazily over and over in space. Constructions riddled its outer surface, including towers, panels, and communications dishes of strange design. It looked slightly sinister to me - all grey and metal.
"Eru Ilúvatar?" I guessed. I looked back and saw Sarkona's face among the stars, giving me a nod.
"Largest constructed habitat in the system - so far! The Jovian Orgs might give them some competition in the next few decades though."
Sarkona took a moment to stare at the habitat intently, before turning back to me.
"Anything else in particular you want to see? The Ceres station, the Eris observatory? The Sol arrays? Or I could show you Titan, though you can't really see much from orbit."
I thought about it, but right now there was only one place that I was interested in. Home. There would be time to look at everything else later. Sarkona smiled at my choice and we flew back to it, watching for a time as it span beneath us with a perfect view from our little perch among the stars.