Camila knew. She hadn’t taken her eyes off Julia the whole time; she was on top of it. “The agenda behind the seven-arklet limit?”
“Yes, thank you, Camila. I don’t buy their arguments. To me it feels, rather, like a way of atomizing the population. Keeping the Arkies from cohering into their own polity—a polity that might serve as a wholesome and desirable counterweight to the central dominance of the power structure on Izzy. Speaking of which, Spencer, I want to say how much I appreciate the work you have done in . . . managing things . . . on the IT front. As just now. Giving us the freedom to talk among ourselves without the SAN recording our every word and gesture.”
Spencer nodded as if to say all in a day’s work.
It was dot 18, the beginning of the workday for second shifters. They were in Arklet 215, home to Spencer, three other men, and a woman. The others had gone to breakfast in the common area, to exercise, or to work. Spencer, Julia, and Camila had been joined by a guest: Zeke Petersen, who had arrived by space suit and was still clad in his thermal coverall. He looked mildly agog. Sensing this, Julia turned toward him with a smile. “Major Petersen,” she said, “it is so good you were able to join us. Though I am new to space, I have some understanding of how difficult it is to simply drop by and say hello, as it were.”
“Well, technically I am no longer a major, since that would imply the existence of a military,” Zeke said, “but if we are going to use extinct titles as a courtesy, then I’ll just thank you for your hospitality, Madam President.”
Madam President was a little while parsing that and wasn’t sure if she liked it. Nervous at the silence, Zeke went on: “I’ll apologize in advance that I can’t stay for very long. I’m here with a specific job to do, and once it’s done, I need to move on.”
“Inspecting Arklet 174 for possible damage from a microbolide strike,” Julia said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I called it in yesterday. I could have sworn I heard a loud banging noise. It scared me to death. But there doesn’t seem to be any damage. And the more time goes by the more I wonder if I just imagined it. Space is a noisy environment. I hadn’t expected that. The thrusters are so loud when they come on. Maybe it was nothing more than that. I would feel so embarrassed if I summoned you all the way out here to no purpose.”
“Summoned me?” Zeke asked, a little bewildered. “The Incident Report System is an automatic queue; the assignments are handed out at random.”
Julia exchanged a mischievous look with Spencer. “You and Spencer have been together on Izzy for more than two years,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve come to appreciate his skills—as have I.”
Zeke looked just a bit queasy. “So you got in and manipulated the queue?”
“Old habits die hard,” Julia said. “I’m accustomed to working with people I know and trust. If an inspection of my arklet is required, and someone has to do it, then why not have that someone be a person I have met before? Since the assignments are handed out at random, as you say, it might as well be you.”
“Well,” Zeke said, “since you put it that way, I’m glad to be able to catch up with you for a few minutes, Madam President. Just saying that I’ll have to complete the full inspection anyway, so we can close the loop on your report.”
“Of course, and I’ll bet it will go quickly,” Julia answered with a wink. “Zeke, you are a member of the General Population, are you not?”
“Of course,” Zeke said. “As an original member of the ISS crew, that’s naturally . . .” but then his eyes strayed toward Spencer and his voice trailed off.
Julia smiled. “An awkward topic has come up, and it’s best to face it with absolute transparency. Despite being a longtime, trusted member of the ISS crew, Spencer here has been removed from the General Population and demoted to the status of an Arkie.”
“I wouldn’t look at it as a demotion,” Zeke began.
Julia silenced him with a dismissive fluttering of the fingers. These were still manicured. Camila had been doing her nails for her. “We all know it was a demotion. Markus sprang it on Spencer when he got news of the Eight Ball and saw what was coming. Oh yes, I’ve been filled in on all of the carefully laid plans that Markus set into motion when his sweetheart so conveniently gave him the news. Had word of it reached us at the White House, I don’t know how I would have reacted—but we were busy protecting Kourou, and supporting Markus as best we knew how. Spencer here, after all those years of patient service, was replaced by that hacker boy—”
“Steve Lake?” Zeke asked.
Julia’s eyes darted to Camila, who nodded.
“Yes,” Julia said, “Steve Lake. I guess he’s quite clever, but obviously no competition for Spencer.”
“Are they in competition?” Zeke asked.
“In a sense yes, when we Arkies are exposed to the all-seeing eye of SAN, and the GPop is permitted to have some semblance of privacy.”
“It depends on where you are in the space station,” Zeke began, but then trailed off.
“I wouldn’t know, since I’ve been permitted to spend very little time there. Oh, I know the official justification. I’m not qualified to be a member of the GPop. By process of elimination, that makes me an Arkie. Fine. But that doesn’t mean I can’t maintain a degree of social connection with old friends who are so privileged.” Julia reached out and clasped Zeke’s hand briefly.
“To be sure,” Zeke said, “and I think that as time goes on those two populations will cease to be thought of as separate groups.”
“I know that is the official dogma,” Julia said, amused.
“But most of that social interaction is not going to be through face-to-face visits.”
“So I’m told. Hard to envision how the populations will merge as long as that is the case.”
“Most of it is going to be happening through Spacebook and Scape and whatnot,” Zeke went on, referring to the Cloud Ark versions of popular Internet communication apps. “At least until—”
“Until we all ascend into heaven and live happily ever after as one big friendly Ark,” Julia said. “Zeke, you know space operations better than anyone. What is your opinion of the strategy that Markus has been foisting on us? The Big Ride? Even the name seems a bit suggestive, doesn’t it, of . . . I don’t know what.” She exchanged a look with Camila, who giggled at the witticism.
Zeke looked around.
“You don’t need to worry about that,” Julia reassured him.
“About what?”
“Markus’s surveillance network.”
“SAN? I wasn’t worried about it,” Zeke protested. “Just thinking.”
“About what, pray tell? Major Petersen, all kidding aside, I really am quite keen to hear your opinions as an expert.”
“To tell you the truth, I’m thinking about how thin the walls of this pressure hull are,” Zeke said. “When you called in that bolide strike yesterday, you sounded pretty alarmed—I heard the message. Well, you had every reason to be alarmed. I do this for a living now—I go out and inspect these craters, big and small, that are piling up on our equipment. I patch holes, repair stuff that’s broken, and twice now I’ve had to handle fatalities. It’s no joke. If Markus sees an opportunity for us to ascend into heaven, as you put it, behind the shelter of Amalthea, well, I think it’s worth a try.”
“Is Amalthea going to shelter us from the thickening atmosphere? Camila here has been reading the technical reports for me, which Spencer has been so good as to download from the server. She tells me it’s quite serious.”
“The expansion of the atmosphere? It’s damn serious,” Zeke said. “But Izzy’s ballistic coefficient, with Amalthea attached, is huge. She can plow through some pretty thick air, and the rock will absorb all the heat. And arklets can ride along in her wake, like bicyclists drafting behind a truck.”