After a quick breakfast, they looked through the apartment one last time, revisiting all the rooms. It seemed strange to be leaving when the home still looked lived-in. Lucian wondered what would happen to everything here.
Such things couldn’t be considered as they wheeled their luggage out the door and made the short walk to the Lev station.
Despite the early hour, the city thrummed with life. The last of the clubbers were stumbling home. The azure water of the canal reflected the decrepit tenements looming above. A Lev zoomed overhead, passing over the canyon of buildings. Miami bloomed under the yellow sunlight, opening for the day ahead.
Lucian’s mother strode with purpose, dressed smartly in her fleet blues. The uniform would ensure a speedy passage through spaceport security.
Within minutes, they were at the station, in time for an approaching train. Once onboard, the Lev shot north through the sunlight-dappled city. The rising eastern sun shimmered off the fa?ades of skyscrapers rising above the watery passages between.
Miami sprawled in every direction. Toward the western horizon lay a crumbled patchwork of tenements and run-down slums. Crisscrossing electric trains and a lattice of blue canals extended as far as the eye could see. Far to the north loomed the tops of several arcologies, each complex hundreds of stories tall. Their surrounding tower farms gleamed emerald green in the morning sunlight. That was where most of the rich kids from his boarding school had lived. Naturally, you couldn’t get in without credentials.
The Lev shot north, away from South Miami and through the kilometer-high towers of downtown. Most of the original passengers had exchanged themselves for fresh commuters. Businessmen in designer suits, wealthy wives with extravagant dresses, and bleary-eyed, uniformed kids going off to school. People who lived and breathed money.
Lucian and his mother got off downtown, taking an escalator to another Lev. This one would see them the rest of the way to Canaveral. His throat clamped as his home passed by the window. He tried to take it all in, but his mind was so far away he knew he wasn’t going to remember it.
They rode in silence above the Florida Shoals, drowned land long lost to the rising Atlantic. They passed a sprawling cityscape of floating towers, apartments, and condos, built on artificial islands above the sun-bright shallows. The density lessened as they shot farther north, but the metropolis didn’t truly end. The train zoomed by one arcology after another, each rising so high that Lucian had to crane his neck to see the tops of them. Their many terraces were verdant with parks and golf courses.
The Lev slowed as it neared Canaveral Spaceport. Ground cars crammed the streets and highways, while skycars and larger passenger shuttles streamed above, heading for the landing pads near the cavernous entrance. Space transports streaked skyward above the ocean, most bound for one of the L-Cities, though some, like theirs, would be heading for Sol Citadel. Earth-based launches could reach as far as Mars and the Citadel on one tank of helium-3.
The Citadel was not only a military installation for the League fleets. It was the main hub of the Sol System, where travelers could reach most major colonies in the solar system. Interstellar voyages also embarked from the Citadel, most going to Alpha Centauri, Sirius, Tau Ceti, or Volsung, all First World systems and just one Gate passage away. Each could be reached through the four major Gates that orbited Sol, far beyond even Pluto.
Physicists theorized the Gates could only work when located far from any major gravity well. As such, the passage took up to two weeks or even more in all but the smallest of star systems. Lucian didn’t know how he’d stay sane during the long journey. The liners provided electronic entertainment, such as holo-films and lit-films, free of charge, but Lucian couldn’t imagine staying occupied with just those for a whole month.
Lucian didn’t get much time to look at the monstrosity of pavement, towers, and terminals making up the Canaveral Spaceport before the Lev floated to a complete stop.
As they got off, his mother reminded him of their itinerary. “The trip to the Citadel is fourteen hours. And the Citadel to Volsung is twenty-eight days.”
And that was as fast as any civilian could expect to go. Even by 2364, most interstellar ships couldn’t maintain an average speed of more than two percent lightspeed. The fastest rigs might get up to three percent, and as the years went by, ships only got marginally faster. It took an incredible amount of energy to get even a modest-sized liner running up to two percent, and it burned a lot of helium-3 regardless. Supporting that need for star fuel was the entire outer solar system economy. Still, the outer system was a cold hell Lucian had no interest in visiting, though he would have liked to see the Forge of Heaven with his own eyes someday. The Forge was a megastructure in the orbit of Uranus that delved into the atmosphere for helium-3, that planet containing the highest concentration of that isotope in Sol. The Forge was instrumental to the League economy, its shipments of starship fuel powering more than seventy percent of all starship traffic.
But no amount of fuel could bridge the stars. Only the Gates could. No one knew how they worked, but the Gates had been built by some long-dead race, though it was hard to imagine the warlike Swarmers, the only living aliens humanity knew of, accomplishing such a feat. One thing most scientists agreed on: the technology the Gates used was so advanced as to be inconceivable. Some Gates might jump a mere four light-years, as was the case with the Centauri Gate. Others could jump a hundred light-years or more at a stretch.
The hypothetical alien race that had constructed the Gates was known as the Builders, or sometimes, the Ancients. They’d had some sort of civilization, as their ruins could be found on many League Worlds. It was clear their civilization stretched farther than humanity had so far colonized. Perhaps even to the entire galaxy, though that was theoretical. Strangely, most systems with Builder ruins contained an atmosphere that more or less agreed with Terran biochemistry. For that reason, many surmised the Builders were quite similar to humans, at least in that they preferred a similar gravity and atmospheric composition. Those ruins were thought to be hundreds of thousands of Earth years old, if not more. Strangely, the only place Builder ruins hadn’t been found was Earth itself, though Lucian didn’t know if that had any significance.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
He’d read a lot about the subject when he was younger, his interest falling off in his later teenage years. But now, those old questions haunted him.
“Did you hear what I said, Lucian?” his mother asked.
“Sorry. I was thinking about something.”
She sighed in frustration. “Listen. After you get to Volsung Orbital, you’ll have to take a shuttle down to the surface. The Volsung Academy is on an island far to the north, not far from the ice cap. The best way to get there will be from Karendas. Even though it’s on the equator, it’s still the closest spaceport. If you don’t hear from the Academy by the time you make planetfall, then you’ll have to ask around.”
“Got it.”
They had already passed through the expansive entrance of the spaceport and were pushing through the roiling crowds. Intermixed with the hurried humans were a few metallic droids. They carried luggage, escorted passengers, and drove trams. It wasn’t every day Lucian saw them—they were too expensive to be owned by the people of his neighborhood. Their design was vaguely human, with long metallic arms, legs, and heads. One would never be confused for a human. They were pure metal, parts, and wires, and built only to serve. Like FTL travel, full AI sentience had remained out of reach. Advanced metallic droids could perform basic tasks and communication, and even sound human, but no deep thoughts were happening under the surface. Just highly sophisticated algorithms that every year got just a bit more complicated. He’d heard that the League employed full-on androids, practically indiscernible from real people, for spy jobs, but that was just a rumor.
“Remember, by the time you pass through Volsung Gate, it will be harder to keep in touch,” his mother reminded him. "It will get more expensive, too.”
Of course, messages could only travel as fast as the speed of light. The only thing that bridged the distance of light-years was the Gates. Interstellar messages had to be beamed through the Gates by data running relays set up outside them. With luck, any message sent from Volsung would arrive in Sol in a couple of days or less, depending on backup.
The concept was foreign to Lucian. More people lived on Earth, the Moon, and cislunar space than in the rest of the Worlds combined, so messages were more or less instantaneous for the majority of humanity. Space was still a frontier, even in places like Mars and the Jovian moons, and it would remain so for centuries yet. It was hard for Lucian not to feel a bit of a thrill that he was going into that frontier, despite his reasons for doing so.
They passed through the auto-scanners. After getting the all-clear from the security droid, they walked to the correct terminal.
They waited in the lobby another hour until the gate opened, an hour that seemed to take an eternity. A holo projection took up the majority of Lucian’s attention, showing the candidates for the League Assembly debating something or other. Lucian didn’t care about politics—in his view, both sides were more or less the same, just going after a different demographic of stupid people to line their own pockets. Politics was a racket, and ideas were just weapons to manipulate people into parting with their money in some way or other.
But one of the candidates, a man by the name of Richard Palmer, was impossible to ignore. The balding, pudgy white man, with a halo of fiery red hair, was giving a vitriolic speech about a subject that was all too real to Lucian in his posh British accent. His jowls quivered as he waved his hands almost maniacally.
“Mark my words, the Treaty of Chiron was the worst mistake the League of Worlds has ever made! Allowing the mages to live in the academies?” He scoffed. “Bah! Does anyone think those terrorists will be content with that? One day, and one day soon, they will lead another insurrection against the League. How long before another Xara Mallis rises to take the mantle of the so-called Starsea Mages? Don’t think they are gone! They are out there, plotting and planning the League’s destruction. My father fought and died in the Mage War, and I know I’m not alone. The Treaty of Chiron is a bloody disgrace to him and every other veteran who fought and died and spilled blood upon the stars. And with the return of the Swarmers, can we afford another Mage War?” He shook his head. “Absolutely not!”
The moderator turned to the other candidate, a sober Indian man in glasses, but Lucian had already tuned out the broadcast. He vaguely knew the Treaty of Chiron was the agreement signed by the League with what was left of the Starsea Mages at the close of the Mage War. Besides ending the war, the treaty had all but taken away the rights of mages, forcing them into academies. In return for being allowed the privilege of existing, the Academy Mages served the League by policing the Worlds for rogue mages and using their magic to aid the League in times of war. Such had been the case during both Swarmer Wars, though the part the mages had played had been rather small. Or at least, that was what the League would have the general population believe.
The Treaty of Chiron had also designated Psyche as a prison moon, for all the frayed mages and war criminals.
Lucian was grateful to finally board the shuttle. Once seated, his mother fussed with his safety harness.
A floating security drone roved up and down the aisle.
“Please harness yourselves,” it said in a robotic monotone. “Prepare for liftoff.”
Lucian looked out the window at what might be his last view of Earth from the surface. In mere minutes, all this would be gone, replaced by the cold void of space. Lucian had never felt true weightlessness, not even in a full-body simulation. Those required sim pills, which he had never been able to afford. But now, at least, he’d experience the real thing, at least until the artificial gravity kicked in.
His mother reached for his hand. Whether it was for his comfort or hers, he couldn’t say.
The shuttle rolled down the runway. With a roar, it took to the air. Lucian gritted his teeth as he was pushed back into his seat.
Upon takeoff, it flew at a slight angle, like a plane, before tilting back and burning full thrust. Lucian’s teeth rattled at the force, his heart pounding in his chest. His mother’s grip tightened over his hand. Over the next few minutes, the blue sky faded into a black expanse of stars.
Lucian’s body floated against his restraints. He didn’t get to experience weightlessness for long. The artificial gravity field kicked on, pushing him down with less gravity than Earth’s. He knew that Martian G, a little over a third of Earth’s, was the standard for most ships and habitats. It was enough to offset most of the ill effects of low gravity, though transitioning back to a higher gravity world could take as long as a month, and even longer for those who had never experienced higher gravity.
The transport sped up, its powerful fusion engine burning them toward Sol Citadel. He was pushed back into his seat before the inertial dampening field compensated, but even then, it couldn’t take all the edge off.
Lucian looked out his viewport as Earth, his home, slipped away. Of course, he’d seen pictures and videos of Earth from space. He’d even seen full holographic renderings so real it was a wonder they couldn’t be touched. But he’d never seen Earth as he saw it now. That beautiful blue orb, with its streaks of white clouds and green landmasses and vast oceans, rendered him breathless. It was everything he had ever known, and it was going away forever. The feeling was bitter, and he forced himself to turn away.
The transport was high enough for a space habitat to pass underneath their ship. Earth had hundreds of stations, habitats, and orbitals, though the largest were L4 and L5. Each of the L-Cities was home to tens of thousands and major hubs of intersystem commerce. Lucian regretted he wouldn’t get to see either.
Faster than Lucian would have believed, Earth shrank in the viewport. After an hour, it had become a bright blue dot, one among thousands in an infinite sea of stars.
