Into the Unknowable Ch. 03

As a woman outnumbered by men in the Intrepid's senior staff, Second Officer Sheila Nkomo made a special effort to befriend her fellow female officers. She wasn't in a position to get to know Captain Kerensky particularly well. This was partly a consequence of relative rank, but also because her captain was a lesbian. It wasn't that Sheila held any prejudices against homosexuals, but she did feel nervous given that the captain was so obviously attracted to her.

So the only woman with whom Sheila was comfortable in befriending was Petal Chang, the Chief Science Officer. She was a tall slim oriental woman whose role on a mission such as this was unusually important. However, she wore her rank lightly and warmly welcomed the Second Officer's overtures of friendship.

At first, Sheila thought that she and Petal had more in common than just gender and approximate rank. She'd believed that Petal Chang was also a fellow Uranian. This was a welcome reminder of home in a company of fellow officers made up of Saturnians, Neptunians and Martians. The two women shared cultural ties and the same orbit in the Solar System. However, when Sheila discussed what Captain Kerensky had told her about encounter with the slave ship that masqueraded as a commercial leisure cruiser she was surprised to find something about her fellow officer that she'd not suspected before.

"I was once transported in a slave ship like that," Petal told her. "I was sold into slavery by the rogue colony where I was born."

Sheila couldn't have been more astonished. "I thought you came from Umbriel."

"I do," said Petal. "That's where I've lived most of my life. But my childhood was spent in deep space somewhere between Neptune and the Kuiper Belt. I was born in the rogue colony known as Double Rainbow."

"I've never heard of it," admitted Sheila.

"That's not surprising," said Petal. "There are thousands of rogue colonies and Double Rainbow isn't especially notable for either its culture or its achievements."

"How did you happen to be transported on a slave ship?" Sheila wondered. "Is Double Rainbow a slave trading colony?"

"Not really," said Petal. "It's a hereditary dictatorship. It's a self-professed anarcho-syndicalist commune, ostensibly like Godwin, but something must have gone badly wrong during its history. As a child I was told that the leader of the colony, Cherry Deng, was the latest in a line descended from Double Rainbow's founder and that he carried the beacon of good governance and order from his eminent ancestor. His title was Shining Beacon, rather than President or Secretary or King or whatever, because anarchist societies aren't supposed to have leaders but that was effectively what he was. I also discovered after I'd escaped from the colony that his ancestor, Lavender Deng, wasn't the founder of Double Rainbow at all. He was someone who'd usurped the leading role nearly a century after Double Rainbow had been established."

"So the colony was originally a genuine anarchist colony?"

"Maybe it was once upon a time," said Petal. "We were instructed in individual freedom and how to work together as a community, but more than that we were instructed in the wisdom, benevolence and greatness of the Shining Beacon. This was an anarchistic society whose police force was known as the Freedom Facilitators; an aristocracy known as the Syndicate Representatives; in which rigorous censorship was imposed by the Truth Providers; and where propaganda and education was jointly disseminated by the Committee of Open Knowledge. Double Rainbow is a rigid society where unquestioning obedience to the dictator's whims takes precedence over everything else. And despite his pleasant sounding name, Cherry Deng was in actual fact a cruel sadistic dictator."

"In what way was he cruel and sadistic?" wondered Sheila.

"There were monthly purges," said Petal. "Every month, one in fifty of the population was purged. The term for this was Cultural Cleansing. The victims of the purge would be of one pupil from every classroom, one worker in every syndicate and one minister in every cabinet. From the top to the bottom of our society, there was a monthly ceremony in which someone or other was chosen to be purged. In a colony which emphasised the need to bear children and where those women or men least capable of providing children were invariably amongst those to be purged, there was always a ready supply of young and eager people to fill any position that became vacant. The justification for the purges was that it rid Double Rainbow of antisocial elements who threatened to destabilise the colony's harmony and compromise the true spirit of anarchism. It was also a way of enforcing conformity through terror and fear."

"What did purging entail?"

"For most men, it was a painful, prolonged and agonising public execution," said Petal. "It was similar to what the Holy Crusaders inflicted on one another before the Intrepid was attacked and they got flushed away. Sometimes the community was could choose the punishment that would be inflicted on the person to be purged, but as most communities were deemed too lenient the method of execution was usually dictated by the Central Syndicate. Generally very little expression of imagination or creativity was permitted in Double Rainbow. Those who exhibited much evidence of individualism were almost always the most likely victim of the next purge. But in the means and methods of torture and immolation, there was an outpouring of ingenuity and inventiveness however much it was very vicious. There were many kinds of dismemberment and disembowelling inflicted prior to the inevitable death, but this was itself often preceded by days or weeks of cruel public punishment in which ordinary people were invited to participate by throwing stones or cutting off chunks of flesh or other such acts."

"Did you have to participate?" wondered Sheila with genuine horror.

"I was a child," said Petal. "I didn't know any different. But if I didn't, I'd have been purged much sooner than I was."

"So you were purged?"

"Yes, but as a young girl who was deemed to be marketable I was spared public execution and instead sold as a sex slave."

"A sex slave. How horrible! Surely you'd have preferred death."

"Not really," said Petal. "You really have no idea how cruel and obscene the public executions could be. In any case, I didn't know when I was selected to be purged that this was to be my fate. No one on Double Rainbow was aware that this happened to most of the women and children who were purged. It was assumed that my fate would be much the same as those who were publicly immolated, but which in deference to the sentiments and feelings of the community was executed in a private space such as a dungeon. In actual fact, my fate was simply to have my clothes taken from me, to be bathed and deloused, and then marched into the hold of one of the slave ships that docked at the colony every month to collect a fixed quota of slaves. And the only slaves the space ships were collecting were sex slaves."

"Women and children?" gasped a horrified Sheila.

"Don't ask."

"Did you become a sex slave?"

"Fortunately not," said Petal. "My virginity and that of all the women and girls on the slave ship was kept intact for good commercial reasons. I believe we were due to go to somewhere called Holy Contemplation: a monastic retreat in the Inner Solar System; though what use monks have for sex slaves I don't know. However, the slave ship developed engine trouble in Uranus orbit and I was rescued before all the human cargo was jettisoned into deep space."

"They were throwing live people out of the ship?" wondered Sheila aghast.

"Slavery is illegal in international law, Sheila," said Petal. "The slave traders would expect to be prosecuted by the Interplanetary Union if they were found to be in possession of thousands of slaves shackled together in the hull. As it was, if help hadn't come within hours rather than days then the slaves would all have been exterminated. I knew nothing about this at the time. It was only after we were rescued that I learnt about the circumstances that accompanied our rescue. We weren't exactly kept informed about what was happening, any more than those who were thrown off the ship. We knew nothing about anything. We didn't know where we were, where we were headed to, or what was going to happen to us when we arrived. We were shackled in cubicles where we could defecate into a space below us and could eat and drink from a dispenser that was approximately at eye level. We had no freedom of movement and were unable to talk to one another."

Sheila never again discussed Petal's earlier life or the circumstances of her slavery. The whole thing disgusted and rather upset her. However, her respect for the Chief Science Officer was now greatly enhanced. She now appreciated how much more difficult it had been for Petal to rise from her early years in Umbriel to the senior position she now held. Petal was nearly twice Sheila's age of forty years, but neither of them looked much older than a thirty year old might even though Petal had only been able to benefit from modern life-extending medicine at a rather later age than had Sheila.

Petal was the nearest thing Sheila had to a close friend on the Space Ship Intrepid. Sheila always kept a distance from the men on the space ship. She didn't want to be party to the frivolous love affairs that so many other crew members indulged in. Perhaps it was her upbringing in orbit around Sycorax, but she believed that a sexual relationship should never be divorced from emotional commitment. This wasn't an attitude shared by Petal who was quite happy to have sex with any number or combination of men, but this wasn't a topic the two women normally discussed. Nonetheless, Sheila still wondered whether the Chief Science Officer's professionalism was compromised by her having had sex with both the Chief Petty Officer and the Chief Medical Officer.

"Shall we go for a swim, Sheila?" suggested Petal who appeared unexpectedly at the door to Sheila's apartments in the officers' quarters.

"A swim?" wondered the Second Officer who had no plans. "I don't see why not. Where do you suggest?"

"I was thinking that the lake on the fifth level would be a good choice."

"What about the dolphins?"

"They've been temporarily confined to allow some opportunity for the fish to breed," said the Chief Science Officer. "We'll more or less have the lake to ourselves. That is, except for the turtles and herons."

"I'll just get my swimming costume," said Sheila.

"Oh, yes, you do that," said Petal, subtly reminding Sheila that the Chief Science Officer didn't own anything like that at all. Umbriel was a much more liberal community than Sycorax and public nudity was never an issue for Petal. Sheila wondered whether the same had been true of Double Rainbow, but as the rogue communities who practised the most perverse and appalling sexual habits were often those most censorious she wouldn't be surprised to discover that despite Petal having been sold as a sex slave her childhood had been severely sexually repressed.

The fifth level lake dominated the landscape. It was two or three kilometres across and in the middle, a whole kilometre from the shore, was a two or three hundred metre wide island. There were also other smaller and nearer islands that Sheila and Petal could swim to. The two women strode to the lake from the entrance past villas where scientists were living in luxury. When not in their homes, the same scientists were busy researching and analysing the Anomaly, but as the Chief Science Officer remarked in passing there'd still been no breakthrough with regards to understanding the extraordinary phenomenon.

"Do you think we'll find out more about it when we're closer?" wondered Sheila.

"Who knows?" said Petal. "It's possible, I suppose. There must be some rationale for the huge cost and expense of this mission."

"I take it that you're not convinced about the value of this mission," said Sheila.

"I'm not an expert in any one of the fields these scientists are engaged in," said the Chief Science Officer. "My mission objectives are much more concerned with administration than research. In any case, my doctorate in Mathematics is too abstract to be relevant for this mission. If the Anomaly should turn out to be a mathematical rather than a physical phenomenon then I might possibly be of more use. However, I wonder what difference to human understanding could possibly result from transporting thousands of scientists into deep space rather than sending back data remotely to a research centre somewhere closer to home in, for instance, Uranus orbit."

"That would be a nice place to be," agreed Sheila who savoured the homely reference. It had been a long time since she'd last been home to Sycorax and she rather missed the distant sight from her colony of its irregular shape and eccentric retrograde orbit.

Sheila decorously donned her one-piece swimsuit when they arrived at the lake while Petal simply slipped out of her clothes and dived into the water from a diving board. Sheila dived into the water after Petal and the two women swam energetically across the lake towards a small island just twenty metres across on which were three coconut palm trees. It was invigorating to swim in warm water while fish swam past and if Sheila swam on her back she could gaze overhead at the blue ceiling and the occasional heron or tern. A small rowing boat was anchored by the larger island in the centre where three or four people were enjoying a picnic on the shore. The island towards which the two officers were swimming was currently unoccupied.

Petal was the stronger swimmer and pulled herself out of the water onto the shore while Sheila splashed behind. She could admire her friend's naked body but she knew that although there was no denying that Petal was an attractive woman what she felt didn't resemble at all Captain Kerensky feelings for her. Perhaps Sheila just wasn't as sexual a woman as the captain or even Petal, but she'd never been physically aroused by the sight of another woman's naked body. What aroused her more was the deep love and affection she'd felt for her husband, Kingsley, before he died in an unfortunate accident on a space craft carrier. It was a wonder that more people didn't die when a smaller space ship punched a hole right through the carrier rather than slow to a graceful and gradual halt.

"It's a beautiful view," said Petal to Sheila as her friend and fellow officer pulled herself out of the lake.

"Very nice," Sheila agreed as she sat beside Petal while water dripped down her skin and slid off her swimsuit.

"There's something I wanted to ask you," said Petal as they gazed over the horizon towards the shore.

"What's that?"

"Why is it do you think that only one of the missiles that were fired towards the Intrepid managed to hit the ship?"

"Technically, it didn't actually do that," Sheila corrected the Chief Science Officer. "The impact was external. The breach in the Intrepid's hull came from the explosion of interception."

"So, if it had actually hit us then rather more than just the outermost level would have been destroyed?"

"I'm not qualified to say."

"Well, I am," said Petal. "We don't know who launched the assault on the Intrepid or why. I guess that information will be relayed to us in due course from Mission Control on the Moon. In fact, I calculate that only by now will they have observed that anything had even happened. What I can say is that it was a miracle we survived. I would also say that it's a five sigma miracle. It just doesn't make sense that we survived."

"I don't understand," said Sheila.

"Neither do I," said Petal. "But please indulge me while in the relative security on this island where the Intrepid's surveillance systems haven't been installed I mention some of the things that are troubling me."

"Yes of course."

"I've analysed the data and my conclusion is that although it's not impossible that the Intrepid could have survived the assault it is entirely improbable," said Petal. "It's only possible in the same sense that a coin can come up heads a thousand or so times. And yet, of course, that is exactly what happened."

"So?" said Sheila. "We were just lucky."

"And the other concern I have is Captain Kerensky," Petal continued. "Have you noticed the change in her character since about a month before the mysterious assault on the Intrepid?"

"She's always looked at me in a rather creepy way," admitted Sheila.

"That just means she's human. In any case I doubt whether that's something that changed. No. Has she changed in other ways?"

"I've not really noticed. She is more diligent I suppose. She never seems to go off duty. She always hangs around on the bridge."

"Perhaps I'm just being paranoid," admitted Petal. "To me she seems a lot more guarded about what she says. It's as if she has to censor whatever she has to say before she says it."

"She's just being vigilant," said Sheila. "This is a highly classified mission."

Petal sighed and her eyes scanned the lake where terns were swooping together over waters that occasionally broke asunder as a fish leapt to the surface. "Maybe it's nothing," she said. "But there are just several other things that trouble me. I wonder, for instance, about that incident about a year ago involving Colonel Vashti. You know, the time when the captain fainted. It was as if she'd been trying to say something and the effort was too much for her."

"We all get hot flushes and dizzy spells," said Sheila. "If anything was peculiar it's that Colonel Vashti. Just what kind of a woman is she?"

"She's very popular with the ship's military contingent," said Petal. "She is very peculiar, of course. Have you any idea how she got to be that way? Is she a man who's becoming a woman or a woman with a little extra added on?"

"There's no limit to how far you can modify your body if you choose to," sniffed Sheila with a hint of disapproval. Although scarcely a religious woman, Sheila generally believed that one should be content with the body one was born with. The physical modification fashions throughout the Solar System, especially in Jovian orbit, sometimes rather disgusted her. Why would someone choose to change their skin colour to silver, purple or yellow? Why would a woman want to be completely androgynous? Why should anyone want two penises? The sexual modifications that so many men opted for that made their penises a metre long. The women who grew their bosom to such monstrous proportions... How could people suffer so much to gratify such bizarre and gross sexual fantasies?

"Colonel Vashti isn't the only person on board whose presence puzzles me," said Petal. "I wonder about that Godwinian, Paul, and his wife. As Chief Science Officer, I really can't see any point in either of them being on the mission and yet here they are, despite Professor Giuseppe Wasilewski's public objections. Paul is just an expensive dead weight, whereas Beatrice's only role appears to be to provide sexual pleasure to as many men and women as she can."

"I've noticed that," said Sheila with another disapproving sniff. "She's a harlot. I heard she was employed as a sex worker on Ecstasy."

"That would be a profession well suited to her," commented Petal without echoing Sheila's disapproval. "So why are Paul and Beatrice on this mission?"

"Beatrice gets on very well with the captain," said Sheila. "And when Beatrice isn't around, the captain can always rely on Colonel Vashti."

"Do you think there's anything odd about the fact that Beatrice is so intimate with Captain Kerensky?" Petal wondered. "It's as if she were planted here just to seduce the captain."