Prodigious Alignment: Chapter 9

This is a proper adventure.

Areanna found herself giggling in delight with every new centimeter of the Arvad. In recent months, Gareth provided technical blueprints to the entire ship to mollify his daughter’s wanderlust, which she memorized in hours. So while she had a decent idea where they were, Areanna lived her whole life in FHU 02, or Foreward Habitat Unit 02, emphasizing her small sphere of experience.

The Arvad was constructed with 160 Hab Units, 80 Fore and 80 Aft. Hab Units arrayed in four rings of twenty each, sandwiched between two ribbed hallways fore and aft. Unit designations began with the first four Agriculture Decks, or “Ag Decks.” Between the Ag Decks were five Hab units. In the Clovar’s ring, FAD 01 proceeded to FHU 01–05. FAD 02 came next, followed by FHU 06–10, and so on.

FHU 02’s proximity to the bow meant Areanna and Gareth could cover the distance from home to their meeting with the Prime Council in roughly ten minutes. However, Gareth agreed to wake up early to take the scenic route.

The first part of their journey was mundane. They followed one of the administrative hallways with which Areanna was familiar, waving jauntily to the passing adults, who each seemed more confused than the last as the pair progressed.

They arrived at the door to the forward airlock. As with every door before it, it was clearly labeled but otherwise nondescript. Areanna knew where they were from her study of the blueprints, but the actual structure of the airlock was new. Beyond the plain entry door was a lobby, a small, square room even by Arvad standards. Areanna guessed its walls were fewer than one and one-half meters on each side, which made for a cozy fit after they both stepped inside and Gareth closed the door.

Opposite the lobby entry sat the airlock. The airlock was smaller than the entry door through which Areanna and Gareth had passed. However, it was crafted from metal over twenty centimeters thick, lacked all of the polish of the interior doors with which Areanna was familiar, and had an intimidating 150 cm metal circular handle mounted in the center that operated the locking mechanism. The effect was a door whose size belied its crucial function and which seemed to loom intimidatingly over Areanna all the more for it.

The handle appeared disproportionately large given the size of the door, which was narrower than one meter and only half again as tall. Gareth would have to duck to pass, and he explained that the airlocks were all this small for safety, to reduce the strain that sudden vacuum would place on the frame.

Areanna was fascinated by the mechanics, but her child’s instincts quickly overrode her academic curiosity. Before her father made it ten words into his explanation, she reached out and tried to turn the airlock’s handle. Her hands were too small to get a firm purchase on the thick ring, and after straining for a few seconds, she surrendered to her father. He chuckled warmly and opened the airlock.

The handle seemingly offered her father little resistance, but as Gareth turned it, Areanna could hear the scraping, sliding sound of heavy bolts changing position in the frame. The sound was pleasant, with a deep timbre, a testament to how well the Maintenance department cared for the robust mechanisms. A click indicated the door was unlocked, and Gareth opened the airlock.

If the door were any larger, we couldn’t have opened it with both of us in the lobby, Areanna thought as she pressed herself flat against the wall.

Beyond the airlock was a second, identical lobby to the first. Another heavy door awaited the pair, but squeezing themselves together was unnecessary as the door swung outward from their perspective.

Areanna walked through the airlock and into the hallway, taking her first steps outside FHU 02. They were in the foremost rib hallway, a large ring that connected Hab Units 01 through 20 and Agriculture “Ag” decks 01 through 04. They continued ten degrees spinward or to the “front door” of FHU 03. The Hab rings connected to each Hab and Ag Unit via an airlock, but due to their rotation, they did not have permanent doors separating them from the non-rotating frame of the Arvad. Instead, openings large enough for four adults to pass abreast mirrored each airlock. As the rings rotated, one of these openings aligned with the single stationary elevator lobby every hour. One elevator connected the fore and aft of each ring for two entry points each.

While the rings rotated quickly enough to simulate near-one gee gravity, they were slow enough to allow Areanna and Gareth to step across its threshold when the passage across from FHU 03 aligned with the elevator lobby.

“Remember what I told you about the gravity as we step across, and be prepared to grab something,” Gareth reminded his daughter.

“Understood, dad,” Areanna replied.

The window of availability to move from the ring to the elevator lobby was a couple of minutes, so they had plenty of time to maneuver safely. As the entrance came into view, they could see another adult floating patiently, waiting for the entries to align. A generous window allowed those in the hallway to see anyone in the elevator lobby and vice-versa, giving everyone an extra sixty seconds to strategize their passage around anyone moving in the opposite direction.

With only three people to utilize the interchange, they had plenty of room, and the adult transitioning from the elevator acknowledged Areanna and Gareth with a smile and a wave as they passed.

“Wooooah,” Areanan said as she crossed the threshold and floated away from simulated gravity. “This is so weird.”

“Grab a handle before you hit your head,” Gareth reminded her. Areanna reached out and took hold of one of the dozens of fabric straps that covered every surface indiscriminately of what was the “floor” or “ceiling” from any given perspective.

Had they been heading directly to the Prime Council, they would have taken the elevator straight to the bow. Instead, they traveled another level further, arriving at the station servicing the bi-directional tram that moved people and cargo along the spine of the Arvad.

None of these areas spun, so they were without simulated gravity. Across the tram station, which was the most expansive space Areanna had ever seen, were scattered cargo loaders and crates. Most were strapped to the “floor,” but some loaders were weighed down with cargo and appeared to be secured using electromagnets.

Areanna was itching to fling herself across the gravity-less space to examine every container and piece of machinery. Sensing her instinct, Gareth placed a steadying hand on her shoulder, and she resisted.

The tram arrived shortly. It ran a consistent schedule, stopping at each station for two minutes to allow for the loading and unloading of cargo.

The pair floated into the nearest passenger bay, lit by innumerable green LEDs. The cargo bays outnumbered the passenger areas and distinguished themselves with yellow LEDs. They pulled themselves onto the tram, and Gareth helped Areanna into a faded red seat.

They only traveled one stop to FHU 30 on the second fore-most Fore Hab Unit ring. The impact of the air filtration announced itself the instant Areanna stepped out of the train car. She wrinkled her brow, and her left nostril became impenetrably clogged. The engineering particularity of the environment filtration systems that pumped the freshest air into the forward sections of the Arvad had been purely hypothetical to Areanna. Still, she instantly and viscerally understood the problem when she tasted the air here, less than half the distance from her Hab Unit to the aft-most Hab Units.

“I think I understand some of the frustration that led to the Scrubber’s Rebellion better,” she said.

Gareth winced but nodded his head. “Yes, it’s remarkable how fragile a human-compatible atmosphere is. Particulate pollution here in ring two is more detectable than ours.”

“If it’s this unpleasant after one ring, it must be so much worse in the sixteenth ring.”

“You aren’t wrong, but each ring is only a fraction worse than the one before it. The impurity levels relative to the preceding ring diminish the farther you go, so the difference between rings one and two is an order of magnitude worse than between rings fifteen and sixteen,” Gareth explained.

“Okay, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s still getting worse from ring to ring.”

“You’re right about that, kiddo. It does just get worse, no matter how you frame it.”

Areanna shook her head. “We need to get off this ship.”

Gareth said nothing in response, and the two pulled themselves along in amiable silence until they reached the airlock leading to the airlock separating the station from the nil-gee keel service hallway.

“Are you ready for the view of a lifetime?” Gareth asked.

“Yes, let’s go!”

The service hallway that ran the length of the Arvad’s keel from bow to stern was narrow, providing just enough space for two adults to pass one another. Its curved walls formed an almost perfect circle; Areanna pictured it as an elongated cylinder. It would have felt claustrophobic if not for hundreds of small, thick viewports placed at even intervals along the walls. Areanna had seen viewports before, but never so many in such a small space. The effect was that she could look in almost every direction and see the inky blackness, emphasizing just how little was between them and the vacuum of space.

“Uh, dad? Can we get moving? This isn’t quite as much fun as I thought it would be.”

“Of course,” Gareth said, pulling himself along a little faster. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s a lot of space in here. Like, outer space space. It doesn’t feel safe.”

“I’m sorry; I should have warned you this could happen. It’s a well-documented phenomenon that those who are unused to this sort of view can feel a sort of existential emasculation.”

“I’m not male, dad,” Areanna pointed out.

“Metaphorical emasculation, sorry. I just mean it can make people feel insignificant, which can be upsetting.”

“Oh, yeah, I understand that. That sounds like a phobia.”

“Precisely. Do you want to return to the tram and head back?”

“No,” Areanna said, gritting her teeth. “We’re here, and I want to see everything. Let’s just move more quickly.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

No one else traversed their section of the hallway, so their return trip to the same service elevator was rapid. The elevator lobby, one stop “above” the train level, was identical to the others they had seen.

“I understand that the Arvad was manufactured to reduce complexity and maximize modularity for spare parts and repairs, but how do you adults keep from getting lost? It all looks the same!”

Gareth laughed. “You get used to it. Ultimately, there aren’t many places to go, so it’s not as confusing as you might think.”

Areanna considered that while they waited for the elevator to arrive. “I guess that makes sense. I know my way around FHU 02 pretty well, and its design is repetitive.”

The elevator arrived, and the pair continued to the aftward rib hallway of their Hab ring. Areanna could no longer contain her excitement, and her sporadic giggle fits erupted spontaneously into a full belly laugh.

Startled, Gareth asked, “Are you okay?”

“Hahaha, yes, ha, I’m just so full of nervous energy. This is the part I’ve been most looking forward to!”

Gareth smiled as they approached the final stop of their tour: FAD 01, the foremost Agricultural deck. They operated the airlocks and stepped through. Areanna felt transported to another world. FAD 01 was as expansive as a single Hab Unit would be, except with most of the interior walls stripped away. Instead of narrow hallways and cramped living quarters, there were fields. Swaths of grass, well-tended gardens, and even a few groves of trees dotted the park-like Ag Unit.

It was all too much for Areanna, who had never seen so much open space or greenery in one place. She began to cry with joy, her eyes almost burning from the saturation of color and beauty of her surroundings.

“These trees over here are actually apple trees,” Gareth said, pointing to a small grove. “FAD 01 is sometimes called ‘Council Park’ because it serves primarily as a recreational green space, as opposed to every other Ag Unit that prioritizes efficient food production.”

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“Can we not talk for a while? I just want to soak up everything I can see,” Areanna said, tears streaming down her face.

“Of course, my love,” Gareth gently touched her shoulder.

The pair walked the length of FAD 01 with minutes to spare. The conference room High Commander Lucinda Natus secured for them was attached to FAD 01, which was only twenty degrees anti-spinward from FHU 02. Their circuitous route took almost ten times as long, but Areanna felt it was worth it.

Ron Sadleman, Head of Security, was waiting for them by the doorway to the conference room. He politely saluted Areanna, who curtsied and said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Sadleman.”

Sadleman rocked back on his heels. “The pleasure is mine, Miss Clovar. You may enter when ready; everyone else has already arrived.”

Areanna took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m ready. Thank you.”

Sadleman pushed a series of buttons on the wall, and the door slid open. “Please, after you,” he said, gesturing with his arm.

The twelve Department Heads were already seated. Two smaller rectangular tables placed side-by-side created one square table surrounded by fifteen chairs. Gareth guided Areanna to one chair, and she moved to sit obediently, her eyes wide. She had never met one in person before the week prior.

High Commander Lucinda Natus stood as the Clovars pulled their chairs back from the table. The other heads followed suit, with Vallois being the last to rise, Gareth noted with amusement.

“Miss Clovar, may I call you Areanna?” Lucinda Natus asked.

“Yes, of course, High Commander,” Areanna answered breathlessly.

“Thank you. And it’s Lucinda. Please, have a seat.”

“Thank you, uh, Lucinda,” Areanna said, struggling with such a familiar greeting for the leader of the entire mission. “But actually, may I say something first?”

Lucinda could not hide her surprise. “Yes, you may speak freely here.”

Areanna nodded, then turned to Chief Steward Harriet Auburn to her right. She held out her hand, soliciting a handshake. Auburn reciprocated, and Areanna said, “Chief Steward Auburn, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise, young lady,” the Chief Steward replied.

Areanna continued around the room counter-clockwise, greeting each Department Head individually and by name.

“Dr. Blackwell, hello.

“Mr. Stephenson, I’ve heard so much about your work with my father.

“Chief Hureyra, I’ve just been through FAD 01, and it’s a work of art.

“Mr. Vallois, it’s a pleasure to see you again.

“Monsieur de Talcott, encentée.

“Cook Oliveira, I’ve tried your vegetable patty recipe, and it’s sublime.

“Dr. Prokhorov, I wanted to thank you again for the opportunity to take the APTs. They were so much fun.

“Chief Archivist Newberry, I’m a massive fan of your work.

“Director Quince, good morning.

“Chief Cobden-Edwards, wow, thank you for taking the time to meet with me today.

“High Commander, I don’t know what to say…” she trailed off.

Lucinda Natus beamed at Areanna. “Young lady, you don’t need to say anything. Your teachers have reported that you are as gregarious and impressive as Dr. Prokhorov.”

She turned to Gareth. “Mr. Clovar, your daughter is a delight. Please be seated, both of you.”

Areanna and Gareth took their seats. Around the table, the Department Heads gawked at the ten-year-old before them. They had known her for fewer than five minutes, and already, she had proven herself to be a fascinating intellect.

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen,” the High Commander began. “We are here today to discuss Areanna Clovar and decide her best course of action forward. Dr. Prokhorov, please preview her APT scores and presently available courses of action. Let’s align on the future of the Arvad’s youngest prodigy.”