Dadr'Ba (4 page)

Su’Zi wondered the labyrinth matrix of shafts and tunnels, her mind adrift, unable to focus; oblivious to the dangers, hazards and threats her inattention placed her in.

She wandered a vast maze; the result of centuries of mining operations, the T’Bm’s
[20]
resemble giant worms working their way throughout Dadr’Ba. Starting near the core and slowly working outwards in levels, each colder than the one above it, edging toward the outer skin of Dadr’Ba.

Dadr’Ba is slowly consuming itself for the fuel to power its main engine that provides both propulsion and primary power needed to operate.

The infrastructure necessary to operate and maintain Dadr’Ba and its engine is massive. There is mining equipment to collect the raw fuel cometary material. Then there is the material transport system; belts, elevators and vehicles, and the processing plant that refines the raw fuel, separating valuable byproducts and producing a light element rich mixture easy for Dadr’Ba’s fusion fires to consume.

There is a multitude of essential life support and ancillary equipment, storage tanks, vats, silos, pumps, kilns and reactor vessels. There are asteroids buried within Dadr’Ba that are mined for minerals and metallic ore and metal refineries and fabrication plants needed to produce everything else needed by Dadr’Ba.

Now with the voyage, almost complete, Dadr’Ba had consumed a third of its three trillion-kilogram mass for fuel.

Dadr’Ba’s light weight, almost hollow status meant little to Su’Zi as she wandered deep, down, following the ten-meter diameter tunnels left by the T’Bm’s. The tracks run away from the warm core of Dadr’Ba towards its cold outer regions, closer to the frigid hostile expanse of space.

Su’Zi wishes she could go back in time, back to a time when Ba was still alive, but she reminds herself that only fools think of time as a dimension.

Su’Zi doesn’t use the light built into the eSuit (environmental suit) she was wearing. She doesn’t even echo click; the method miners can use for hearing their way down dark passages. She feels her way, guided by the curved bottom of the tunnel and the steady breeze of Dadr’Ba’s circulation system. The system carries warm air from near the center of Dadr’Ba, assisted by massive fans, out to Dadr’Ba’s edges and the cold emptiness of space. There it liquefies in stages and gets pumped back to the core as a cryogenic liquid.

Dadr’Ba is a living thing, and like all living things must maintain a delicate balance to stay healthy. Dadr’Ba uses its circulatory system to balance between the near absolute zero of interstellar space and the fusion fire that propels it through space and provides the energy to support life.

In between the two extremes lay its internal organs, the structures, processes and technology and the thousands of people operating and maintaining it all. The challenge is to maintain the critical temperature balance necessary within each zone to ensure the structural integrity of Dadr’Ba’s water ice, frozen organic and gaseous body.

All Life in Dadr’Ba exists solely to support the fusion fire that drives Dadr’Ba. It seems strangely fitting that Ba lost his life there, his molecules burned and fused in the atomic fire that is the life of the ship. It is even likely, that the atoms that made up Ba would be recycled and burned yet again since the exhaust of the engine is rocketing out the front of Dadr’Ba slowing it down.

Dadr’Ba will eventually catch up to this exhaust and with the help of its magnetic field draw many atoms back into its nuclear fire until it can be burned no more, yet still supply exhaust mass. Finally creating a cloud that Dadr’Ba must pass through providing resistance further slowing Dadr’Ba. It may be possible that the atoms that once made up Ba would stay with Dadr’Ba, continuously recycled and make it all the way to O’M.

Su’Zi let her mind wander, unable to focus on anything, not conscious of herself, blindly walking, like a wandering out of body experience, taking strange solace in the feel of the increased chill and gravity as she descends.

T’Bm’s have removed vast volumes of ice, frozen gasses and an assorted mixture of various other elements, leaving a skeleton of a structure engineered and reinforced to be strong enough to frame and support the ship while taking every available kilogram for fuel and raw materials to be processed into the necessities of the ship.

The place she was walking through now had walls resembling the ribs on the inside of an ancient sailing vessel, the ribs, crafted for extra strength. In Dadr’Ba’s early days the builders hollowed out areas to make temporary living quarters, some of these had been abandoned and forgotten over time.

Some cellar areas of Ol’Tn
[21]
once occupied by people before the Touch of God are avoided and sealed off, thousands of people died in those spaces, and even though their bodies had been processed in a manner consistent with the time and custom, many believe ghosts still inhabit those areas. They all died without retirement, without passing their psychic seed to their descendants.

Su’Zi wonders if Ba survived the calamity as a spirit, a lost reflection of one’s self, surviving somewhere in this reality. Wondering too, if his spirit was lost in space or was he able to make it back to the ship? 

Su’Zi passes the active mining zone and now knows where she wants to go; she begins to reflect on the events that have led to this point while her body grows heavy with each step towards her destination forcing her to slow down.

The artificial gravity induced by Dadr’Ba’s spin was set for Zone Two, one hundred to two hundred meters from the core, where the greatest population of the crew works and resides.

She’ll soon be approaching Zone Four, and the outer shell of Dadr’Ba, that keeps Dadr’Ba’s atmosphere in, and the ravages of interstellar space out. The air Su’Zi is breathing is recirculated inside the eSuit she donned as she passed from Zone Two to Zone Three.

Dadr’Ba is by necessity a cold place made predominately of ice, the insulated personal quarters and work modules of Zones Two and Three originally in place when Dadr’Ba exited Or’Gn
[22]
have since been rebuilt out of sturdier materials and Zone Two is now entirely above freezing. Su’Zi being born a Mi’Nr
[23]
has spent the bulk of her scant sixteen years in the lower or non-insulated portions of Zone Three where few except for Mi’Nr’s like herself and her family dwell and work.

She plods along, each step becoming an effort due to the increased gravity, without regard for personal safety, oblivious to the dangers almost as if she were already dead.

She thinks of the Se’Ro’Bs
[24]
, disappointed that she hasn’t encountered one. The mysterious and deadly creature or creatures are known to roam these zones. Rarely seen, and then only in glimpses, the monsters are responsible for gruesome deaths by disembowelment. They consume their victim’s soft internal organs and suck every drop of blood from the unfortunate prey. Few bodies of those gone missing are found.

Su’Zi psychically challenges such a confrontation, welcoming the chance to face down a Se’Ro’Bs or be devoured, and perhaps join Ba. She descends further and slows in the increasing G-forces as she nears her destination, these tunnels are not lit and she uses her light, but set at the lowest intensity, she navigates an obstacle course, along small maintenance and service passages occasionally crisscrossed with beams, struts cross members and scaffolding. The Se’Ro’Bs that had been following her stops at the edge of the obstacles waits a moment, then as if deciding the prey is not worth pursuing through an obstacle course turns and slowly walks away.

She had now passed through and neared the outer edge of Zone Four, the Death Zone. Her weight is nearly more than double the norm of zone two, and she fights to keep from going down on all fours.

The heating systems of the class two eSuit she’s wearing are maxed out; it was designed for the temps of Zone Three not zone four. If she weren’t exerting herself so much to keep moving and creating body heat, the cold would surely take over.

She was able to see frost and an occasional frozen patch of some frozen gas at her feet and on the walls. If she didn’t keep moving and didn’t reach her goal soon, she would perish. Her eSuit, at the edge of its safety margin, began to make a crackling sound as she moved.

She had long since silenced the audible alarm of the suit, but the automated flashing body recovery light had no switch. It irritated her, and she wished she had a wrap to cover it. The flashing caused the eerie sensation of a time stop sequence of movement. The repair patch on one of the pockets of the suit would have been large enough to cover the light sewn into the arm, but she doubted that it would stick as cold as it was.

In the mood she was in, if she died or collapsed, she would rather not be found. After hours of searching and failing to find her father, she only told her mom that she was going for a walk along with a mental reassurance that it was safe for her to be alone. It was only after she walked for a while that she decided on this dangerous course.

She couldn’t feel her hands or her feet as she arrived at her destination. She cycled the airlock and stepped inside. Then turned to the panel on her left and toggle on the radiant heat as she closed the airlock.

As the temperature of the suit slowly warmed, the crackling sound the suit had been making stopped and the emergency recovery light stopped its irritating flashing. Su’Zi’s Mi’Nr eyes quickly adapted to the infrared light.

Su’Zi paused for a moment, allowing her eSuit to warm up and the feeling to come back to her hands and feet, and reflected on what she had just accomplished. It would have been fatal for anyone but a Mi’Nr. Of the three racial divisions aboard Dadr’Ba; Mi’Nr’s are uniquely designed to operate in the harsh environment of the mines. Mi’Nr’s are short, stocky, thick skinned, and strong, with the best twilight and infrared vision of all the races.

The most populous race, the “U’Te’s
[25]
“ short for utilities, are the most common and perform the majority of jobs aboard Dadr’Ba, they have no special strengths or abilities.

Then there is the management, technical, engineering class or race, they are genetically superior in the areas of memory, and intelligence. They call themselves the guardians or “D’En’s
[26]
,” they make up the ruling class, smallest in number, but every one of the five Central Council members are D’En, and the Commander is D’En. D’En’s make all the decisions, and they are keepers of and “guardians” of the detailed knowledge needed to run the ship.

The development of the races was a necessity dating back to Or’Gn. Races ensured the right numbers of people with the right abilities were available to run the ship, but only made sense if people were treated like machines.

There’s no way for one race to do the job of another race without wasting resources in the form of expensive body modifications. A D’En or U’Te couldn’t be a Mi’Nr without significant, modifications and for a Mi’Nr to become a D’En or U’Te would be a waste of existing mods. And it’s unknown what mods are necessary to become a D’En, but there has never been a Mi’Nr or a U’Te that’s been able to pass the application exam for a D’En position.

The D’En’s are by far the minority and are rarely seen in the common areas. It’s been said that they keep an unusually low profile since the equal job rights revolt. Almost five hundred years ago, there had been an uprising because of the unfair treatment between the races. Some strikes threatened to slow the progress of Dadr’Ba, and the CA had to make an official statement that all races were equal and that anyone no matter what race could hold any job they qualified for.

The CA was forced into authorizing costly Bio-Mods. The CA was able to circumvent what they had permitted by stipulating that the applicant had to be otherwise qualified before the Bio-Mods. This effectively prevented Mi’Nr’s and U’Te’s from becoming D’En’s and most Mi’Nr’s didn’t want to do U’Te work and those that did seemed to have trouble passing the qualification exams.

And there had, so far never been a D’En or U’Te that wanted to apply to be a Mi’Nr. Mining is looked down upon as hard, dirty, work for the less intelligent and Mi’Nr’s are viewed as unfriendly, harsh and belligerent.

The CA was able to guarantee racial status quo by restricting the budget allocated for body mods making it impossible to do a cross-racial body mod, claiming that most of the mods fall into the category of “elective” thereby forcing the individual to pay for the mods from their personal funds.
[27]

In the end, the equal job rights protest resulted in no real change in the way people were treated or treated each other, and only further alienated the crew and drove a wedge deeper into the gulf between the races and between the crew and the CA.

Su’Zi wondered if Ba might still be alive had the CA handled the equal job rights situation differently or any number of other situations where CA’s response was inordinately harsh. Like why criticisms of the CA are considered a crime? It’s understandable that a starship needs discipline, but why can’t the CA be freer with the wage scales, medical procedures, spices, and why are there so many secrets? What is the CA hiding?

Su’Zi wondered about these things as she worked her way down the slope towards the command compartment of what was once one of the last crew supply ships to make it to Dadr’Ba before it left Or’Gn’s solar system. This ship had instead of delivering its cargo and returning to a dying world, crashed itself into Dadr’Ba becoming semi-buried and the crew rescued.