Vera's First Day In Space (Part 1)

Vera’s First day In Space copyright David Kirtley 2007

CHAPTER ONE: VERA'S FIRST DAY IN SPACE (Part 1)

Setting : Martan Empire, continent of Gallanol, in the Modern Age

Vera signalled to her instructor through the reinforced Space Made Glass panel. Her hand was still free so she could still do that before they strapped it down for take off. If she had not been so tense, she would have relished this. Diocletian the instructor had taken the time to come and see her off. An instructor's time was precious. They earned so much per hour that it was not worthwhile to waste any time during their working periods. This was costing him money. An instructor was paid for time spent instructing only. Courtesy visits to see trainee Astros off could not be counted as instruction by any stretch of the regulations. It wasn't forbidden but it was costly in lost income.
She had not expected to see anyone she knew at the launch pad except for her fellow classmates, some of whom were seated behind her, bound for the same space station as she was. Her two parents were unavailable, her father being an electrical engineer at the Gallano-Lunian Complex Power Plant in Ulypt, on the other side of the continent. It had a virtual monopoly these days over the electricity requirements of the eastern coast region from Parnamor in the north to Kelmar in the south. It used to supply Mandol until the army there had sequestered its assets because their government was running into debt. Sabotage by terrorists had meant that all technical employees had been required on permanent duties for at least the last six months so the corporation didn't lose some substantial contracts.
Her mother had gone into the voluntary Mental Health Institution at Marta City only five weeks ago. Vera had tried to see her but the last few weeks of space training required even longer than usual hours of study, computer aided personal discipline monitoring, and seclusion exercises, all of which had demanded all her time. When she had finally got time off and travelled across city her mother had been unwilling to see her. The Institution's Visiting Applications Manager had stated the reason as being her mother's need for Stress Reduction Withdrawal Techniques, meaning personal seclusion. Vera, however, believed her mother was annoyed because she had not visited her sooner and was showing it by refusing to see her before her first training term in space. Vera had bit back a tear at the time but rationalising about it later had come to the conclusion that she never saw much of her mother anyway, and when she did her mother had always been a dull bore. She never had the high powered education which enabled most people to make something of themselves. That was probably why she was in a Mental Health Institution now - because she wasn't educated to have a broad mind and couldn't rationalise.
Even her father, when he had been living with them both, had tried to persuade her to enrol on some kind of work orientation course but she had refused with that ignorant stubbornness of hers. She had been young when she had Vera and the brothers Marcus and Jon. Later she was behind in her education and had not felt confident enough to start again with other people years younger. Vera's father had been earning big money by then and there had been no need for her to resume either study or work. Her mother had always protested that she hated to study, that she was no good, that there were no posts applicable to her. They had been sickened over the years by her negative attitude. She lived in a large apartment, with money to burn, she had it all. Then Vera’s father had been away for long periods working for Gallano Lunian. Her mother had been bored and lonely but refused to work or study. She turned to App Maneddonism for comfort.
Then Marcus had been lost in the exploration of the planet Dion I in outer space and she had got worse. Brother Jon had left home finally to work as an Investment Manager with the Galancian multi-continental bank House Cadwallion. After all that, Vera rationalised, it had only been a matter of time before the breakdown came to her. Vera wanted to help but she couldn’t endanger her career in Martan Imperial Outer Space Technologies (MIOST) and she believed it was better her mother faced the real world sooner rather than later.
The ship attendant came round the seats again to strap down the passengers’ arms. It could be dangerous when the G forces hit for arms to be flailing backward behind the padded seats – arms had been strained and even broken by such accidents in the early years of rocket launch. Breathing masks were also being fitted for easy breathing during the onerous takeoff. Takeoff was what she feared most. She had even had nightmares, particularly in recent months but also as a teenager about this unpleasant but necessary experience.
Diocletian was still there on the platform and he waved directly at her. It would take her mind off the launch at least. She had never known he cared for her enough to take the time off but this was the kind of gesture it was acceptable for him to make. A horrible thought entered her head. Maybe he was there to see them all off. He had been her personal Space Personal Maintenance Instructor, that was for handling personal hygiene, waste, health, exercise, gravity loss and so on, as well as the Technology of Space Station Maintenance classes, which he had given to a whole class. The Personal Maintenance preparation had been a short course only recently taken, but it used direct one to one teaching methods to ensure deep understanding. They had got to know one another quite well. The whole of her class however knew him from the Space Station Maintenance class and she wondered whether any of them had had him for Personal Maintenance too. She knew that some of them she had talked to had other instructors. It was quite possible that Diocletian had turned up for the benefit of someone else, or for all of them. She now rationalised that he was there for all of them because she couldn’t guarantee he was there for her.
She had loved Diocletian deeply from the first moment she had set eyes upon him. Afterwards she had come to respect him as a person and a teacher and her love had deepened. He was the only one she thought of. She had been in closer contact with him than any other male for two years now. His greater age and maturity of character stamped him as being superior to any other males she knew. She knew he was married with a large family, and she had long since rationalised accordingly that she meant nothing to him, but his appearance on the launch pad platform had transcended all of those rationalisations, until now, when she became aware of the existence of the other members of her class. Silly me, she thought, sadly. It had at least taken her mind off the launch, and she would continue to think of him as the rocket lifted towards space.
There was a deafening roar as the rockets began to dissipate energy. Vera was suddenly terrified. No training course could thoroughly prepare a student for the first space launch. Some of the other students screamed. She thought it was terror because those screams were not normal. They compounded her own terror. But afterwards she rationalised that it was probably only excitement. After all they had all experienced the G-force simulators. The knowledge that this was the real thing gave the moment a psychological edge. No one, not least Vera, could ignore the fact that not all launches went smoothly. It was well known that some three percent of rocket launches still ended in disaster even in modern times. However hard the rocket engineers and science theorists tried, they had not managed to perceptibly reduce this statistical risk in twenty years of effort since the last major safety advance. It was a risk all space students had to accept in order to fulfil their proper role in society, like birth, or a mother in childbirth or a soldier in battle. There was no choice but to grit one’s teeth, push it out of your mind and go through with it. Vera closed her eyes to suppress the terror.
None of her family had been in space before except Marcus, who was lost in the outer void. He had been home briefly on leave once before he disappeared. All space personnel had to return to the home planet periodically to keep them healthy. Early Astros had stayed up too long, sickened and died, but periodical return had solved the problem. She had been with her brother more in that period than ever before. His intelligence and quick-wittedness had marked him for the highest paid space exploration programs at an early age. Father had encouraged him to do well for himself and he had. The Martan Imperial Outer Space Exploration Foundation (MIOSEF) had employed him and they had a reputation for only employing the very best. They were one of the few organisations which remained partially government-owned (Martan Imperial owned it, that is to say) because the high risks involved in their outer space operations demanded a non-private guarantor.
Her own organisation, MIOST, had been government-owned twenty years before, but had been sold off to a consortium of the largest organisations on the continent. Vera was proud to be working for an independent organisation which did not need to rely on the government, but there was no denying that MIOSEF was far more prestigious.
Marcus had been quite changed when he came back. He looked years older but that was the time effect of the space travel he had been engaged in. Five more years had passed for him but he could afford some of the costly treatments which were becoming available to prolong life. At first he had seemed characterless, bland, unwilling to talk, but after the first few days they had come to realise that it was a symptom of the vast experience and knowledge he had absorbed. Small things bored him, particularly small talk. They had not known what he talked about with his space companions – she guessed that they did things – games, competitions rather than talked a lot. He had seemed unused to normal conversation. Perhaps it had been the solitary tasks he had undertaken or the educational habits forged in him.
After those first days he had talked more, slowly, with what seemed like great effort of thought. Each word really counted. But what he said had great weight, great significance, and the things he told her about the planets, the terrors, the extreme heats and colds, the alien life forms which he believed were out there. She had seen the strength of purpose in him, the belief in the importance of what he was doing for mankind. Also she perceived his prejudices. He believed his experiences made him more than ordinary men. It was a belief inculcated into them by their isolation from other men and women and perhaps by MIOSEF to boost their self-confidence and their loyalty to the organisation.
That was the last she had seen of her brother, over a year ago. He had gone back to space slightly more open and relaxed than when he first arrived back, seeming closer to his real age again. She knew the interlude had done him good, but MIOSEF’s mission had called him back. His sacrifice was required for the sake of progress and development. His special skills were in short supply, would always be. Many years of training had gone into making him the special man he had become. Memory bank implants had been inserted. Instantaneous training processes had been used for technical information which required to be input into his brain which did not need more natural learning experiences. Word had come soon after he went: “Marcus Domitian Serranus, Astro class 59z, Special Rank, Space Cadet lost in action near 43 Planet Caton (Marta Galance) Dion I System. Missing presumed dead, lost with Honour of Highest Degree in the Line of Duty. The House wishes to express deepest sorrow to the family and trusts that all grief will be overcome by the knowledge that he died on a mission of the utmost importance to modern mankind.”
That was all the message said. Mother had sought more information. The rest of the family had been reluctant. “It will be classified,” said Father, “Otherwise they would have given more information. It says, ‘Mission of the Utmost Importance”
“But why does it need to be classified?” said Mother. “The planet is unified now. There are no competitors. Only MIOSEF does the work it does. No other House can afford to compete. We don’t know what’s going on out there, but there’s no reason why they shouldn’t tell us. After all, they are working to expand knowledge.”
Against all advice Mother had insisted on legal actions. She employed lawyers in Company Secret Legislation. They opened a series of cases and appeals but she lost in the end. MIOSEF’s lawyers were better and they could afford them. That was the final thing which cracked her, not knowing exactly what happened to him.
Mother was a throwback to the pre-technological age. She never accepted the age she lived in because she refused to be educated and consequently did not understand it. She believed she should not have to learn if she did not want. People were free to choose for themselves. They should expect a stable and balanced life without striving for self-improvement, merely because they had raised a family.
Vera had tried to persuade her on her free evenings from the Technic, that she was letting herself go. The family had been full grown for years now and into education or work. Mother should have been in some kind of work or education years before. The activity would have stimulated her, given her confidence and meaning in life. She might even have earned big money. Instead she had vegetated in her old books, meeting her App Maneddonist friends who spent hours together discussing ancient history and the boring writings of a self-deluded prophet who had incautiously made a nuisance of himself with the Telmartans in tribal times.
The G-forces were subsiding. Vera knew she was safe now. Her rocket launch had not been one of those unexplainable statistics of failure which so irritated the rational world of science. She was still alive. The long years of her education, the investment in teachers and instructors, the foresight of her parents in deciding to send her to pre-school, so she could learn faster, the hard earned money her father had given up to ensure she could top up her state education minima with extra and special tuition – all these things, and many more, had not been wasted. What a relief that must be to MIOST. The cost involved in taking one operator from Gallanol to space was quite phenomenal. Vera mentally kicked herself, because she could not quite remember what the total figure was, or even how many noughts it had on the end of it. She was distraught because she had mentioned the very figure in the graduation letter she had been persuaded to write for the benefit of future generations who would follow her into the service of scientific progress and humanity in space. It had gone now, shunted out of her memory by the mass of detailed procedures and regulations she had only just learned. It was an irritation. It usually followed that you remembered those facts and figures, which interested you most. The figure gave her quite a strong feeling of self-importance and had helped to motivate her in her work. The figure had been calculated to the minutest detail. Every possible cost and overhead including opportunity costs of not using her space for alternative cargoes had been used, and even then, the figure could not be exact. Statistical methods of probability using samples from thousands of previous rocket launches, including failures and those which had required additional fuelling or last minute delays due to technical malfunctions had been included to reduce the margins of error to acceptable levels of confidence. Vera did not understand all of it; after all, she was not an accountant or a computer programmer, but an operator/engineer with her own special tasks to perform. Nonetheless, she had been taught some of the basic tenets of these specialisms. The pursuit of wide knowledge enables one to withstand the shifting tides of market forces and be flexible if ever one’s job should be removed or altered. She had learned much of the theories of probabilities and statistics over the years, although of course she was still little more than a novice. Vera felt she had somehow let down her instructors, and resolved to work harder in future.

To be continued in Part 2 of Chapter 1 : Vera’s First Day In Space