The space station was nothing like what I’d expected. It was like another planet. The air smelled of food and strange spices; the noises were of crowds and vehicles, not the humming and echo of metal in vacuum. I looked up and, beyond the clouds, I saw the system’s sun, pale and glistening, and past that, bleached by daylight, the ringed gas giant looming near the horizon.
Even with all I’d seen over the past few days, I still marveled at the station. There were huge buildings, taller than any skyscraper I’d ever seen, spiraling up toward the clear dome. Some of these were cylinders, others arches or shaped like lightning bolts or branching out like trees. Aircraft and shuttles of all shapes and configurations zipped between them, and trains wound through the skies like serpents. There were plants and fountains and waterfalls. A circulation system kept the air breezy and fresh, and the light felt bright and natural.
Dr. Roop had arranged for private transport—a rectangular box that seemed to have no driver and resembled a smaller version of the shuttle, but with windows. We rode above the city, cruising over a massive park full of alien vegetation. We then touched down just outside some sort of government compound, gated and set off from other buildings. A bull-headed—literally!—peace officer in a black uniform checked Dr. Roop’s credentials, and we were admitted onto the property, which looked to me like a college campus. The buildings were smaller than most we’d seen in the city, the majority of them constructed from pale blue sports drink–colored bricks. It was pleasant and strangely comfortable with its wide open lawns and statues.
“This area, within the gates, is the Council Center,” Dr. Roop explained as we walked up to a building made of pale green stones. It appeared to be about twenty feet high. “This is the seat of government for the station and the entire Confederation. Tens of thousands of government workers pass through here every day. It can be quite hectic, but you’ll figure your way around. This building,” he said, gesturing to a squat, five-story structure, “is where you will spend most of your time. It contains your quarters, most of your training facilities, my administrative offices, and your classrooms.”
“Then we are to keep up with our studies?” Charles asked.
“Not the studies you pursued on your home world,” Dr. Roop said. “We will meet every morning for a few hours to discuss Confederation history and current events, and also to help guide your progress through the coming year. Other than that, your time is your own. You may leave the compound if you like, though there is a strict 2400 curfew. Public transportation is both free and easy to access, and the city is entirely open to you except for certain sections that have fallen into disrepair. And, needless to say, you should avoid the undeveloped regions outside the city itself.”
“What happens if we go there by mistake?” I asked.
“You won’t,” Dr. Roop assured me. “You must be at least level thirty to enter those sections. But have no fear, those areas represent only a tiny portion of the station. You will have more than enough to explore in the open areas, and to make that exploration more enjoyable, you will be given a spending allowance, accessed through your data bracelet, of one hundred credits per ten-day cycle, which should prove more than sufficient for meals, though you can also eat without paying in any of the compound cafeterias. Feel free also to spend your currency on entertainment, clothes, and whatever diversions you decide to seek out.”
We had now entered the lobby, which was large and, like everywhere else on the station, bustling with activity. There were high ceilings, walls with scrolling text and video screens, and countless beings hurrying from one location to the next. “The station operates on a standard twenty-six-hour day, which is the average day length for Confederation members’ homeworlds. I understand it is a bit longer than what you’re used to, but you will quickly adjust. Your data bracelets automatically reset to local time, which is now almost 1300, our noon. After I show you to your rooms, I will give you a quick overview of the city, and then you can explore for the rest of the day. We begin class at 0800 tomorrow morning.”
Dr. Roop led us to a series of elevators, which we shared with a pair of slime creatures and their ill-behaved slime children, who fixed their eyes (I think) on us during the length of the ride. We came out into a corridor that felt curiously like the hallway of a hotel. “There are no keys,” Dr. Roop said. “Like on the ship, each room has been biometrically adjusted to you. Only the residents can gain access.”
He gestured toward one room, which was for Ms. Price. Next to that was the room to be shared by Nayana and Mi Sun. Then we came to the room Charles and I were to share. We were roomies.
“Hooray,” I may have accidentally said aloud.
“I do not wish to share a room either,” Charles said to Ms. Price.
She rolled her eyes and shrugged as if to say, Find yourself another space station. Charles looked at me, sighed, and opened the door.
“Set your things down,” Dr. Roop said, “and then we can do a quick explanation of the city.” I walked into the room, which had two beds, a dresser, a bathroom designed pretty well for beings of our general shape and bathroom needs, and not a whole lot else. When I went back to the main room, Charles had taken the bed closest to the door.
“I choose this one,” he said.
“You don’t want to ask if I have a preference?”
“I am nearly level seven,” he said, his voice clipped. “I believe that means I outrank you.”
I was tempted to cash in my skill points just to shut him up, but I didn’t really care which bed I had, so I let it go.
“Fine,” I said. I put my bag down on the bed, and was about to walk out, but I decided there was something I had to do first. I unzipped my duffel and rooted around until I found my Martian Manhunter action figure.
I supposed after everything that had happened, I shouldn’t have been too surprised that I missed home so much. It had been me and my mother against everyone else for so long, and now here I was, literally light years away, and we couldn’t be there for each other. It would have been easier if there had been some way to call her, to find out how she was and to let her know I was okay. Instead I was on my own, with no friends, and already in trouble.
I didn’t even know anymore if I still missed my dad. I remembered him, and I remembered watching movies and playing catch and going on road trips with him, but he’d been dead for five years. When you’re seven years old, you know if you like someone or not, but you don’t really know a person, not the way you can when you’re older. I wished I could have known him that way, but even if he was just a distant memory now, he was still the one person I most wanted to talk to about the things I’d already seen and hoped to see. I couldn’t do that, but I felt like the fact that I had survived the alien attack, that the other humans and Dr. Roop and the friends I’d made on the Dependable were still alive and free, was because I had learned a few things about how starships worked. That meant we were all still alive because of my father, because of the enthusiasms he had passed on to me.
To honor him, I placed the Martian Manhunter action figure on my desk, standing stoic and unyielding. In some small and silly way, it felt like a small, green version of my father watching over me. Next to the action figure, I put the little cardboard box with the locket my mother had given me to remember those I’d left behind.
I looked up and realized Charles was staring at me. “Dr. Roop is waiting for us. It hardly seems the time to be playing with toys.”
“It’s something my father gave me,” I said quietly. So he would feel completely rotten, I added, “Before he died.”
“I apologize.” Charles lowered his gaze. “I’ve brought mementos of my family as well.”
Charles was an orphan, and I knew people who had lived hard lives sometimes acted out. Maybe it was time to put our past problems behind us.
I closed the distance between us and held out my hand. “Look, Charle
s, I get that you want us all to do well, but given everything that’s happened, maybe it’s time to start over.”
He shook his head and put his own hands in his pockets. “I have no wish to hurt your feelings,” he said. “Nevertheless, it is in the best interest of our planet that we not be friends. The others and I discussed this after the incident at Ganar, and this was our conclusion.”
I was still standing there, hand out like an idiot, when Charles walked out of the room.
• • •
Dr. Roop’s overview of Confederation Central, it became clear, was only going to give us the most basic sense of the station. I had the feeling it would take months, maybe years, to really get to know a place this enormous and varied. Dr. Roop focused instead on teaching us how to find our way around and what to do if we got lost. He let us know where the major shopping and eating districts were, where we could find parks and exercise facilities, what sections were closed off because of disrepair. Finally, he showed us the room where we would meet the next day for our first class.
“Enjoy your explorations,” he said. “Discovery is part of the process. And I shall see you all at 0800.”
Nayana wrapped one arm around Charles’s shoulder and one around Mi Sun’s. I heard her whisper something to the others, and then she looked back at me, but I distinctly heard Mi Sun say no, and then the three of them headed toward the main entrance of the compound.
Dr. Roop turned to me. “I need to meet with representatives of several government committees. They may want to talk to you, so don’t go too far.”
“Where would I go?”
I supposed I shouldn’t have felt so sorry for myself, but everyone I liked was back on the Dependable, and now I was alone on this space station with no friends. I should probably have taken the time to get to know the city, maybe grab something to eat, but I was feeling intimidated, and the idea of venturing alone into the vastness of Confederation Central, with its aliens and unfamiliar customs, intimidated me. In the end I went back to my room, figuring I should enjoy a little time without Charles around. I told myself I’d use the data bracelet to figure out a place to go get something to eat, but I knew I was kidding myself. I was probably going to lie down on the bed, like I did my first night on the Dependable, maybe try to play some Approximate Results from Endeavors online, and likely go to sleep hungry.
When I walked through the door to the room, I immediately sensed that something was wrong. It was the inexplicable tingle you get when you’re being watched. I told myself I should run, but I didn’t want to feel like an idiot. The room was dark but not completely so, and I felt certain there was someone in there, waiting for me.
And then I saw it, coming out of the shadows, tall and muscular and reptilian, with two yellow eyes, featureless and without mercy, trained on me. This creature, I knew without a hint of doubt, had come to kill me.
• • •
My father loved the original Star Trek series episode “Arena,” in which a group of persnickety aliens called the Metrons force Captain Kirk to resolve his grievances with the hostile Gorn by fighting mano a mano on a desert planet. This thing in my room was a real-life version of a Gorn, a lizard man, an upright Komodo dragon, a predator chiseled by a million years of evolution to be a killing machine. Like the Gorn, this being wore a sort of sleeveless tunic that went halfway down its muscled thighs and broad tail. Its arms also looked powerful, but long and supple, with protruding veins. On Star Trek, the Gorn captain is intimidating and ruthless, but—and this is largely a consequence of him actually being a guy in a rubber suit—he is also absurdly slow. He can pick up a massive boulder with which to crush Kirk’s skull, but you could have a pizza delivered in the time it takes him to bring the boulder down.
I only had to look at the lizard creature in my room to know it wasn’t slow. Its athletic build and its tensed posture suggested speed and strength and the ability to strike with deadly precision. It crouched slightly, and I had no doubt it could cross the fifteen feet between us in a single, deadly leap. It looked at me with its blank predator gaze, and its narrow forked tongue tasted the air. My heart thundered in my chest. Did I dare call for help? By the time I moved for my data bracelet, it would be too late. If it launched forward, I would be dead in seconds.
“Afternoon, mate,” it said, moving toward me, its gait rolling and confident. I noticed it had long and flat feet, wider than a human’s, and it wore open sandals that revealed its narrow toes. Could it run fast in those? I didn’t want to find out. Then I looked up and noticed the number above its head—a six. It was new here. It had to be one of the initiates.
The translator rendered its voice male and, for some reason, in a working-class London accent. As he came closer, the creature tapped his data bracelet, and two holographic images came up, side by side: me and Charles. He looked at the images, then at me, then the images and at me again, as if trying to figure out which one I was. His tongue tasted the air and his yellow eyes squinted slightly. “You’re Ezekiel, yeah?”
I swallowed hard. “Zeke, actually,” I managed. My heart was slowing down a little, because, in spite of my alarm, I was starting to think this lizard was maybe a little too social for an alien assassin.
He balled both his hands into celebratory fists. “Right, then. I’m Steve Ku Ri, with the Ish-hi delegation—the random, which makes us mates, I reckon.”
I stared at the cockney lizard, trying to take this all in. I had processed that he wasn’t going to kill me, so I was catching up, but maybe not so quickly. “Your name is Steve?”
“That’s right. What of it?”
I rubbed my forehead. This was too much, too fast. “Well,” I said, trying to figure out how to explain to a lizard man why I thought his name was funny. “It’s a name among my people. Sort of a bland name, actually. It’s not really what I’d expect from an, uh, Ish-hi.”
He cocked his head thoughtfully. “It’s a fairly ordinary combination of consonants with a single vowel. There’re hundreds of worlds with Steves on them, I should think.”
“Could be,” I agreed, trying to figure out how to avoid offending this alien any further.
“Probably more Steves than Zekes.”
“Probably.” I took a step back.
He flicked his tongue in the air, as if trying to sense something. “Are you all right? You’re not a bit slow now, are you? And I’m getting a bit of fear off you. Didn’t mean to startle you.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I just wasn’t expecting to find anyone in my room.”
“Well, that’s understandable, given that they’re biometrically sealed against intruders and all that. I’m glad to hear you’re not dim. With a random, anything is possible. You could be mental, for all I know. But I heard about you taking care of that Phandic ship, so I figured you knew what you’re about.”
I’d made the same mistake with Urch, and here I was doing it with another alien, one who had reached out to me in friendship. I’d assumed that because he looked scary, he must be scary. Steve hadn’t done anything to make me afraid of him. Except breaking into my room, but that only meant he was a troublemaker, not a bad guy. It seemed worth noting that in an early draft of Star Wars, George Lucas had Han Solo as a lizard man, and there was something of the intergalactic smuggler in this reptile.
“So how did you get in here?” I asked, deciding to press the point. Maybe he didn’t want to kill me, but I still didn’t know how he’d found his way into my locked room.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” he said, lowering his gaze in apparent embarrassment. “That was Tamret. She doesn’t much care for locks, and she thought it would be good fun to wait for you inside, so she”—he sort of shrugged here—“bypassed it, I guess you’d say. Seems like she’s good at that sort of thing. Then she got tired of waiting and headed out to find a place for us to get a bite to eat. Left me here to bring you along when you showed
up.”
Was I always going to be one step behind with this guy? “Who’s Tamret?”
“She’s the random from the Rarel delegation. She’s like you.”
“Like me?”
He nodded. Apparently they nodded on his world. That was convenient. “You know—all mammalian and such. Not a particularly patient mammal, either. It’s the self-regulating blood temperature, I expect. Makes you twitchy. Anyhow, she’ll be waiting for us, so time to get a move on.”
What else was I going to do? Sit around, play some games, and wait for Charles to come home smelling of good times and social aptitude?
“Sure,” I said. “Let’s go meet Tamret.”
• • •
We took a public train that crossed through one of the plazas toward a busy commercial district. Confederation Central had moved to its night cycle, and I hurried to keep up with Steve as he pushed his way through the crowded and brightly lit streets. The buildings glowed with vibrant colors. Holographic billboards floated in the sky, three-dimensional advertisements for products and places and entertainments. A simple tweak of my HUD allowed me to access audio linked to any of the images, or have more information sent to my data bracelet. I could even use the HUD to make immediate purchases. Clearly, the Confederation had not moved beyond commercialism.
Buskers churned out music, simple and staggeringly strange. The beings around us wore an endless variety of clothes, some that looked like they could have been from Earth, others that clearly could never have been from anywhere in my solar system. There were beings with mobile tattoos that moved over their bodies, or holographic accessories that flew or hovered or flashed around them. The city was like Blade Runner’s Los Angeles, but without the menace or the obvious poverty. We occasionally received odd stares from beings who had never seen our kinds before, but there was no hostility. We saw no homeless, nor anyone who looked poor.