The Engines of Dawn (12 page)

After breakfast in the student commons, Ben, with little else to do, headed for the makeshift offices of
The Alley Comrade.
He'd heard a rumor that they were operating out of a vacant room behind a barber shop and beauty salon in the student commons. Since there was no reason for him to go to his office to prepare for the two classes he taught as a postgrad, he decided to look in on
The Alley Comrade.

When Ben reached the offices, he found that the student staff had already packed up and moved on. Ben paused before a corridor wall screen and summoned up the campus directory menu. Not knowing what else to do, he asked the directory for the whereabouts of Mark Innella. Which he got.

And that surprised him. A real revolutionary would have covered his tracks better. Yet the directory showed Innella's com/pager giving a location in the university library, the only other place on the ship to which students still had free access. Classes might have been canceled, but homework still had to be done.

The library was approximately 350 yards from Ben's present position. But part of the shutdown included the transit portals, and without the transit portals in operation people had to walk wherever they wanted to go. So he did.

The menu indicated that Innella was in a back room that was part of the Special Collections department of the library. No one stopped him from entering the library technical-processing area, and he found a side room that appeared to be the place on the directory where Innella could be found.

Ben walked right in without knocking.

A dozen students were busy pecking away at word processors, polishing the stories of the next edition. Several people gasped when Ben stepped inside.

"Shut the door!" Innella said, rising from his seat, pencil behind his ear. He rushed behind Ben and pulled the door closed, but not without checking to see if anyone had followed him.

"How did you find us?" Innella asked.

Ben pointed to the reporter's collar chevrons. "Through the university's main directory. You left your pager on."

"Shit!" Innella said, tweaking it off. Other students double-checked to see if theirs were turned off.

"Now they'll find us for sure!" one student said.

"I think if they wanted to track you down," Ben told them, "they would've done it by now."

"Then maybe the rumor is true," another student said.

"What rumor?" Ben asked.

"That there's a rift among the faculty," Innella told him.

"A rift? What kind of rift?"

"There's a big stew whether or not we should continue the circuit and go home," Innella said. "Some of the staff and the faculty want to go back to Earth and let the H.C. Council in Geneva straighten everything out."

"Straighten what out?" Ben asked.

"What you and your girlfriend saw in the Inner Temple," Innella told him. "That, and the Engine breaking down. That's upset more faculty than has been let on. That's one of the things we're looking into right now."

"The natives are getting restless," Elise Rutenbeck said, an ink smudge on her forehead. "And if there
is
a fight going on among the Enamorati, word has it a lot of people want to seal off the entire Auditor quarters so the Enamorati can't get through to the rest of the ship."

"They should seal the Auditors inside there with them," muttered a discontented student.

"Should have done it a long time ago," someone else added.

Ben thought about this. He was only a lecturer, not privy to the dealings of the tenured faculty in the physics department. His only real contact with the rest of the university faculty was Eve Silbarton, and she hadn't mentioned anything about faculty or staff unrest. On the other hand, she had been busy. Canceling classes was probably the best thing that could have happened, under the circumstances. It now gave her the time to work on her stardrive system around the clock.

"We've been racking our brains trying to figure out a way to interview the Avatka you saw," Innella said. "We even thought of
mailing
him a letter, like the old days. But we couldn't figure out a way to deliver it. The courier system is shut down, what with the administrative offices closed."

"They'd have to get through the Auditors," Ben said. "And they'd be suspicious of a letter."

Scott Nessa, the former manager of KEOS, had been over in a corner reading a book,
The Discourses,
by Meher Baba, which Ben recognized from a humanities class he had taken long ago. With the radio shutdown, Nessa had absolutely nothing to do. "Have you tried speaking with one of the Tagani? Anyone can contact them and you don't have to go through the administration or the Auditors."

Another student said, "We had a Tagani historian talk to us two weeks ago in Mr. Wharton's class. The Enamorati historian caste is always eager to talk with humans."

"Let's find out," Mark Innella said.

The first thing they had to do was find a history graduate student who knew how to contact the few Tagani who traveled with Eos.

They didn't want a member of the history department faculty in on the ploy. About half of the history faculty were members of the Ainge Church, and right now the students needed to stay away from the Ainge.

They found a sympathetic ear in a graduate student named Paul Wierenga, who was sitting in a study carrel just outside the library tech center. When he was told what
The Alley Comrade
was looking for, he was only too happy to help.

In a darkened office in Special Collections, they opened a computer link to the Enamorati quarters, which, surprisingly, went through. Ben guessed that the library's tech computers were on the same com links as the physical plant, and the physical plant never closed or had any of its necessary functions belayed.

Wierenga, a tall, balding young man in his thirties, spoke to the 2D screen. "This is Paul Wierenga summoning the Tagani Veljo Tormis. Please acknowledge."

Ben half-expected nothing to happen. But seconds later, the visage of the Tagani historian Veljo Tormis appeared on screen.

"This is Veljo Tormis," the being said. "I wish to assist you." The eerie greenish yellow atmosphere swirled around the Enamorati's head and his nostrils took the vapors in with small inhalations.

"Hello," Wierenga said enthusiastically. "We met last semester when I scheduled you for Professor Patterson's lecture series."

"I recall this," the alien said.

"We would like to continue the lecture series when classes begin next week, but we're afraid that too many of your colleagues have been killed. Is that true?"

Ben had devised the cover for their call. As Wierenga spoke, everyone else remained out of the reciprocal camera's range, making it seem as if Wierenga were acting alone.

"No Tagani has died," the alien said. "We will be able to assist you in any way."

Wierenga did not miss a beat despite the shrewd evasiveness of the Tagani's answer. "We were thinking of interviewing an Avatka for the lecture series. One of our teachers suggested the Avatka Viroo. Will he be available?"

"I am afraid that our catastrophic Engine failure has made the entire Avatka caste unavailable until the new Engine is installed and flight-tested."

Wierenga faked disappointment. "I'm sorry to hear that. The Avatka Viroo was High Auditor Nethercott's favorite. Bishop Nethercott's going to be at the lecture series, you know."

"I did not know that," the alien admitted.

"We would really like having the Avatka Viroo speak to our class," Wierenga insisted. "Is there any possible way this can be arranged?"

With no trace of emotion, the creature said, "The Avatka caste is presently being cared for and will be unable to speak with any member of the human community probably until we reach Wolfe-Langaard 4. The matter can be taken up with them at that time."

The students flanking the 2D screen, trying to stay out of the reciprocal camera's view, looked at each other. One young reporter started scribbling frantically on her notepad.

"Wolfe-Langaard 4?" Wierenga asked. "Are we going to leave the Alley Circuit?"

The Tagani said, "Given the recent changes in our own… administration, we have decided that we also need a new class of Avatkas and Kaks. It will be a journey of some months, but it will allow for a more efficient Engine crew."

"Sir, I would hate to think that something terrible has happened to the Avatka Viroo. Has he been hurt in any way? I hope you understand that we are your friends and there isn't anything we wouldn't do for you."

"I am sorry to say that this member has been killed," the Tagani said. "Many of us perished in the Engine's breakdown. But I do thank you for your offer of help. Perhaps we can arrange something for the upcoming
Makajaa
ceremony. Though it is forbidden for you to witness the Engine's removal, we could use your support and prayers."

"I can rally the students whenever you wish. Will you let me know when your new ceremony starts?" Wierenga asked.

"I shall call you in forty-eight hours," the Tagani said.

"Please do so," Wierenga said enthusiastically.

The Tagani said the Enamorati equivalent of "goodbye" and the transmission came to an end.

The students gathered around Wierenga.

"The new Engine will arrive in forty-eight hours?" Innella asked. "I thought the new Engine was
weeks
away. Why haven't the Grays told us about this?"

"Maybe they don't know," someone suggested.

"Where is Wolfe-Langaard 4?" another student asked. "Have any of you heard of it? Is it in the Alley?"

"And since when are we going there instead of our next scheduled port of call?" Elise Rutenbeck asked.

"Let's print it all and find out," an undergrad suggested.

"That'll liven things up," Ben said.

"Let's hit the presses," Rutenbeck ordered. "This is going out now. Today. Are you in on this, Bennett?" she asked.

"I think I
started
it," Ben said.

15

The eagerness of the staff of
The Alley Comrade
to get the news out at any cost was their undoing. The issue, again hand-delivered, carried the news that the Avatka Viroo had been killed and that his "caste," or what remained of them, were being cared for. The paper also contained the news that the new Engine would be arriving
very
soon-much sooner than expected--and that Eos University was about to begin a months-long journey to some place called Wolfe-Langaard 4 after their new Engine was installed.

The Grays went nuclear and conducted a shipwide crackdown. Campus security, aided by members of the ROTC, undertook a thorough search for the comrades responsible for the illegal newspaper. They rounded up the editors, the reporters, the fact-finders, the photojournalists, and the printing staff, confiscating their printing equipment and laptop computers and throwing most of the staff into detention so they could be grilled more closely.

They also went after the Enamorati who had been the source of the information. High Auditor Nethercott reluctantly put them into contact with the Tagani Veljo Tormis. The High Auditor did not want to disturb the Enamorati in their time of crisis, but President Porter told him that they'd have an even bigger crisis on board the ship if he didn't.

The Tagani did not disavow the content of the articles, saying that the business about Wolfe-Langaard 4 was a bit premature, and he apologized for the grief it might have caused. The staff of
The Alley Comrade
was finally set free, but they were no longer journalism students and the journalism department had been dissolved. The staff of
The Alley Comrade
had become de facto Bombardiers.

News of this fracas might have inflamed the student body of any normal university to protest, but the students of Eos now had a greater, and much more hopeful, distraction: Eos University had finally reached the planet Kiilmist 5 and had pulled into a three-hundred-mile-high orbit above the Earth-like world. Whatever else was going on in the university could not rival a brand-new planet to explore. Even the members of campus security were interested.

Viewing an orbital insertion-regardless the planet-was a tradition in the university. Students gathered throughout the ship, wherever giant 2D screens were available, to watch the slow orbital ballet as the Cloudman guided the giant ship into a stable orbit. No lecture was involved, no sermon from President Porter-just the blue-white limb of an undiscovered planet turning slowly below them on giant 2D screens everywhere.

Ben found Julia with Professor Holcombe in a seminar room used jointly by the physical sciences. Ben was joined this day by the Bombardiers who took time out of their farting-around schedule to view the planetary unveiling.

The surprises started coming almost immediately. Captain Cleddman earlier had released several satellites and landsats into various orbits to begin scanning the planet for raw, environmental data. Kiilmist 5 was half again as big as the Earth and its yearly cycle around its star-sun was about sixteen months. It had two moons, one of which had its own debris ring. People were already talking of going to the beta moon, if only to figure out how such a small body could have a ring around it at all.

Ben sat next to Julia while George Clock and Tommy Rosales sat behind them. Professor Holcombe sat off to one side where he had access to the controls to the video equipment that would allow him to switch between satellites. Several other faculty had seated themselves close to Holcombe and conferred among themselves, just as excited as any student to see this new world.

Tommy Rosales poked George Clock. "Hey, take a look at that blue sky. Maybe they'll let us take down a couple of kites."

One of the professors down in front had heard the remark. She turned and said, "Doesn't look like there are any mountain ranges, boys. It's mostly low hills and erosion canyons."

"So?" a freshman student sitting behind Rosales and Clock asked.

Clock turned around. "Without mountain ranges you could have surface winds in excess of two hundred miles an hour. Go kiting in a breeze like that and you'll get your wings clipped."