Community by Aric Merchant
This story originally appeared in Alien Dimensions Issue #4
Katie tapped the button to activate the intercom.
“We are now entering the Theta Eridani System.” She alerted the crew. “Dropping to sub-light speed. We will arrive at Ptolemy in about six hours.”
Several holographic data windows hovered above her console. An image of Ptolemy was centered in one, a blue and green globe. The planet looked alive from space, but Katie knew that its oceans were still acidic, and the green color came from extremophile algae and lichens. It was currently in the middle phase of the terraforming process. For now, intelligent life could only occupy the domed colonies that dotted Ptolemy’s central landmass.
Still, Katie was looking forward to setting foot on solid ground. She and her crew had been in flight for more than a month transporting mineral ore all the way from the Centauri System. Her usual cargo run between Theta Eridani and Delta Eridani was less than two weeks at standard FTL speeds. She pulled up the holo-window displaying her schedule. If the cargo transfer went according to plan, then she should be able to spend two full days on the surface, much more than usual.
#
Aryan pulled the last dish from the rinse water and dried it with his towel. Then, he placed it on the stack of dishes and hung the towel to dry. He placed the apron he had been wearing on its hook. On his way out of the food plaza, he nodded to the shift supervisor and passed his palm with his subcutaneous ID chip over the timeclock sensor.
There was nothing on his schedule for the evening, so he started off towards the library, where he spent most of his free evenings.
As he walked, Eridanians scurried about around his feet. The small furry hexapedal creatures went about their own business, paying him no mind. He would often follow one with his eyes as it crossed the common areas, eventually disappearing around a corner, and he would wonder what task it was performing. Unfortunately, he could not ask. The individual Eridanians were incapable of speech. A human could only talk to them by speaking to the Queen. She, alone, was no more intelligent than the others, but she could give voice to their collective mind.
Aryan watched an Eridanian with a device nestled on its back cross the path in front of him. It scurried into a small hole in the nearest wall, off to do some maintenance work, most likely.
His observations were interrupted by a new thought. The thought was not his own. It was nearly indistinguishable from his own thoughts, but Aryan had grown up in the Community and he had learned to distinguish his own thoughts from theirs.
A chemical spill has occurred in the medical services district, the Community thought. There was no way he could have known that on his own. That was the first clue that the thought was not a product of his own mind. Aryan A43-H98 will join the cleanup effort. The second clue was the use of his full designation, consisting of his name and his parent’s bloodline codes. Without thinking about it consciously, he changed course and began walking towards the medical services district.
Knowledge of hazmat suits and chemical spill protocol began to fill his mind.
#
Ptolemy was actually the largest moon of a gas giant and every thirteen hours that gas giant would eclipse both the stars in the binary system. The eclipse would last for seven hours and was considered Ptolemy’s true night. The world’s rotation would also cause darkness, but the duration and intensity was variable due to the system having two suns. Eclipse-night was more reliable, so this was when the population would sleep.
At least one sun was almost always in the sky when not in eclipse. Full darkness due to rotation only occurred once every couple of weeks. People would react to this additional nighttime in different ways, depending on their age and status. For older inhabitants, this was usually a time for rest or religious observation. For young colonists, this was the best time for a little fun and nightlife.
Katie and Aryan had met during a rotational night a half dozen cargo transport circuits earlier, when Katie had decided to spend her free time enjoying the world’s nightlife phase. Her time on the world would not be likely to coincide with a rotational night very often so she had not wanted to miss out.
To her dismay, she had found herself totally out of place at a Ptolemyan nightclub. She was unfamiliar with any of the drinks being served at the bar and had managed to pick the least palatable one at random. Worse than that, the other nightclub goers were all using a local network to coordinate their dancing. Unlike the chaotic jumble of moves that would be seen on a dancefloor on Earth or a Centauri colony, dancefloors on Ptolemy were choreographed and synchronized. She was not a Ptolemy native and had no implants, so there was no opportunity for her to join the dancing.
“I’m going to guess you are not from around here.” The bartender had said as he had handed her a second drink she was hoping would be better than the first.
“Definitely not. I’m a cargo ship captain. Just passing through the system.” She took a sip of the second drink and winced.
The bartender chuckled. “Don’t bother ordering off the menu. The listed drinks would only taste good if you have implants.” Katie gave him a confused look, so he clarified. “When you order off this menu you are supposed to get a data pack from the Community with it. Sensory information constructed from multiple people’s experiences related to the flavors in the drink. Without the data pack, the drink is just a mishmash of random flavors. Here let me make you something you might like.”
A minute later a colorful beverage was placed in front of her. He had chosen well, Katie found it very enjoyable.
She smiled at him and said “Thanks…”
“Aryan.” He supplied.
“I’m Katie. Where did you learn to bartend?”
“At the front door.” He smiled as he said this, anticipating that she would not understand what he was saying. She didn’t. “Bartending skills were downloaded to my implants as I arrived at the beginning of rotational-night. People my age trade off filling work positions on rotational-nights. I was assigned to bartend tonight and given the proper skills.”
By that time, she had not made many trips to the surface and had not interacted with many Ptolemy colonists. She had heard they shared information over their neural implants, but she hadn’t known to what extent.
“Do you have a job that you do regularly?” She had asked.
“Not really.” He confessed as he prepared another patron’s drink. “I’m a Tier III citizen, so I go wherever the community needs me. They give me the skills I need when I’m assigned.”
A strange way to live, she had thought.
Katie would not normally have wasted her time flirting with a bartender, having learned the hard way that they flirted back to earn bigger tips, but Aryan was different. He was not always a bartender, for one. The fact that she found him very attractive did not hurt.
She had spent the rest of the rotational-night at the bar talking to him. After he had helped clean up and close the club, they had gone for a walk together. Katie remembered the way he would watch the Eridanian’s scamper about, as if their coming and going was a puzzle he was trying to solve.
Their time together had come to an end when eclipse-night approached and Aryan had to return home. She walked alone back to the orbital elevator terminal to get a ride back to her ship in orbit. As her elevator ascended she watched the brilliant colors that danced through the sky as the gas giant eclipsed the two suns and true night began.
The Centauri-Theta Eridani shipping circuit took Katie through some interesting cultures. She picked up ore in the Centauri System, which was essentially a second Solar System. This was not surprising, given its proximity to the human home world.
Typically, their only port of call was in the Delta Eridani System, the Eridanian home system. They would unload some ore there and usually take on cargo meant for the Eridanian colonists on Ptolemy.
Their trip would terminate in the Theta Eridani System at Ptolemy. The Centauri colonies were still primarily inhabited by humans. The few other species were temporary visitors, transient workers or ambassadors. Delta Eridani was occupied almost exclusively by Eridanians. Ptolemy, however, had been a joint colonization effort. Humans and Eridanian’s shared the colonies and the workload of terraforming the moon. Katie thought it was sociologically interesting that the Humans of Ptolemy had also adopted some of the behaviors of their alien cohabiters. The Community, the network of neural implants over which the colonists could share skills and delegate workloads, was similar to the Eridanian’s hive mind. Of course, the Eridanian’s had evolved their hive mind naturally, much like insect colonies on Earth. Still, the Community made human colonists on Ptolemy much more like the aliens they lived with than were humans elsewhere in occupied space.
As her space elevator car descended, Katie wondered what job Aryan had been assigned that day. Every time she visited, she found him in a different job: construction work, waste reclamation, on her last visit he was working as a tour guide. It was strange always encountering him in a different context, but the minute he saw her he always had the same smile. Aryan would always talk somewhat apologetically about his work, seemingly embarrassed that he was a Tier III trying to make his menial tasks sound interesting to a starship captain. Katie loved listening. Her job took her to interesting places, but the majority of her time was spent aboard her ship. It could get very monotonous, the polar opposite of Aryan’s constantly changing life.
The Elevator car reached the terminal and Katie sent out a text message to Aryan. Her text would be translated by the Community to a thought pattern and presented to him in that format. After a moment, she received a reply message telling her where to meet him.
#
Aryan stepped back and watched as the hover car hummed and lifted off the ground. He wiped his greasy hands on his coveralls and returned his welding laser to his tool belt. This had been his first time working as a hover car mechanic and he was quite proud of his success in getting the vehicle running again. He mentally checked the time with his Community implants. His shift was about up and Katie would be leaving the elevator terminal soon. Rotational-night would be starting in about an hour and he was fortunate to have this one-off work. His plan was to rent a hover car and take Katie out to the algae fields to watch as the suns set. This was a rare rotational-night where they would be setting on the same side of the sky, so it promised to be quite a sight.
He thought back to the last time they had arranged a romantic evening. Katie had managed to get him a seat on the orbital elevator and she took him to visitor her ship. It had been the only time in his life he had left Ptolemy’s surface. Without a starship Captain’s invitation, he had never had cause to leave the ground and would be unlikely to do so again. She had even turned off the artificial gravity in her cabin so he could experience zero gee. They floated together, watching the gas giant’s bands of swirling color through her window. Then, she’d closed the window.
#
Katie arrived at the requested location, a hover car rental service. Aryan appeared a moment later. He was dressed in his casual clothing, so she couldn’t tell where he had been working that day. Her only clue was a smudge she saw on his cheek when they were close enough to embrace. She wiped it away with her thumb.
“Engine grease.” He confessed, his colonial accent was as charming as always. “They had me in a mechanic shop today.”
He led her into the rental building where they retrieved the keys to a pretty blue hover car. They also rented pressure suits which told Katie where they would be going. Once they were suited and in the car Katie noticed Aryan pause for a moment. She realized he had probably never driven one of these before. They tended to be owned only by Tier I colonists. So, Aryan was probably downloading driving skills. After a second, he turned the car on and it lifted into the air. They pulled away from the lot and into a tunnel with signs warning they would be leaving the life support of the domed colony.
Katie double checked that her suit was active as they passed through an airlock. The outer door opened to a rocky landscape. It was the first time Katie had seen the surface of Ptolemy beyond the colony. The ground had a green tint to it, algae and lichens hard at work converting the moon’s atmosphere into something that future colonists could breath.
They drove out for several kilometers. Aryan told her about his day, working on the hover cars. She filled him in on the latest news from the Eridani homeworld, something he always found interesting. When Katie looked back, the dome still occupied most of the horizon, but it was at a considerable distance. Aryan found a place for them to park as the twin suns dipped below the horizon.
In the twilight, they looked to each other through the glass plating of their helmets. Aryan chuckled softly.
“What?” She asked.
“Just thinking, if I wanted to be romantic maybe I should have chosen an activity that didn’t require a pressure suit.”
His gloved hand found her own. Though their skin was not in contact, she enjoyed the pressure of his hand on hers.
“Aryan.” She said cautiously. “It seems there are a number of barriers to us getting… closer.” She was obviously referring to more than the pressure suits. “I mean, I’m always just passing through and sometimes when I’m here you are working….” She hesitated. He looked at her through their helmets, but said nothing. “I guess I’m just wondering where we think this is going.”
“Fair question.” He said, noncommittally. “We do lead very different lives.”
She waited for more, but he stopped there.
“So…” She hesitated again. Katie had no problem commanding a crew of eight aboard her starship, but this… this was different. “I’ll just get right to it then. We love each other…”
She looked at him for confirmation. He smiled and said, “Yes. We do.”
“So, if we want this to become something more, then something has to change.”
“What do you suggest?” Aryan asked.
“Come with me.” She said quickly, wanting to get it out before she lost the nerve.
“In… in space?”
“Yes, in space. Join me on the ship. You can download skills from the Community. We could find a hundred different uses for you.”
“That would be… quite a change.” He said uncertainly.
“Well, yes. That’s the point. We can be together, though. And you could finally take a breath, work one job instead of bouncing around from one to the next. After all the Community can assign anyone to whatever tasks they were going to give you. They don’t need…”
Aryan pulled his hand away. Katie was silent. She could sense that he’d found her words hurtful. Aryan may not have been vital to the survival of the colony, but of course he had value as a part of something greater. But, she had talked down to him, like a Tier I to a Tier III, treated him like a replaceable cog in the machine that was Ptolemy.
“I’m sorry, Aryan. I didn’t mean to suggest…”
“The Community is more than just a dictatorial computer, handing out daily tasks. I know it seems that way from the outside, but, I get more than just assignments from it. We share experiences, memories, understandings. We connect on levels humans without implants cannot truly comprehend”
He was right. The bar drinks she couldn’t enjoy without the accompanying information from the Community was just one example. The Tier IIIs of Ptolemy shared something deeper than just a social class. Asking Aryan to leave the colony was asking him to leave his family.
They both knew that Katie staying on Ptolemy was no better. She had obligations to her crew. Also, there would be no easy way to integrate her into their society. She was the equivalent of a Tier II, someone with specialized skills that could not be easily transferred through the Community. But, her skills were all in the area of space travel. Being in different tiers would also present a problem for their relationship. Inter-tier marriages were looked down upon and generally required the higher tier person to join their partner’s tier.
They were silent as stars began to appear overhead.
“Where is Earth?” Aryan asked, breaking the silence.
Katie scanned the heavens for a moment, then pointed upward.
“And Delta Eridani?”
She found the alien’s home system and pointed again.
“I’ve always wanted to visit their homeworld.” Aryan said.
“We stop there almost every trip. I get to speak directly with the Queen of the hive to coordinate the cargo transfers.” His hand found hers again. “Just think of the experiences you could share with the Community the next time we return to Ptolemy.”
Aryan closed his eyes. Katie waited while he finished whatever interaction he was having with the Community. He opened them again and looked to her. She feared for a moment that the others may have talked him out of joining her or forbidden it outright.
“What was that?” She asked.
“I was downloading space navigation skills. When do we leave, Captain?”