Orbitsville Departure

Book 0: ORBITSVILLE

by Bob Shaw

Genres: Science Fiction; Hard Science Fiction; Space Opera

Synopsis

Two hundred years ago mankind found Orbitsville, a vast sphere whose habitable inner surface comprised living space equivalent to five billion Earths. The resulting migration was enthusiastic - and nearly total. Earth itself is a backwater now, a place with which the people of Orbitsville maintain only marginal contact. But just because it's backward doesn't mean it isn't dangerous.

Release date: September 29, 2011

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 248

Sample

They had decided to spend the few hours that remained to them walking in Garamond Park.

Dallen had been there several times before, but on this occasion his senses were heightened by a blend of excitement and apprehension. The sunlight was almost painful and colours seemed artificially intense. Beyond screens of trees the coppery roofs of the city shone with a spiky brilliance, and the nearby shrubs and flowers—gaudy as tropical plumage—seemed to burn in the sun’s vertical rays. Lime-green lawns sloped down to the only feature of the scene which gave relief to the eye—a circular black lake roughly a kilometre across. Its nearer edge was obscured in part by low mounds of masonry and metal which were all that remained of an ancient fortification. Small groups of sightseers, their hats shifting ellipses of colour, sat among the ruined walls or wandered on the lake’s perimeter path.

“Let’s go down there and have a look,” Dallen said to his wife, impulsively taking her arm.

Cona Dallen held back. “What’s wrong? Can’t you wait?”

“We’re not going to start all that again, are we?” Dallen released her arm. “I thought we had agreed.”

“It’s all right for you to … ” Cona paused, eyeing him sombrely, then in an abrupt change of mood she smiled and walked down the slope with him, slipping one arm around his waist. She was almost as tall as Dallen and they moved in easy unison. The feel of her body synchronising with his made him think of their prolonged session of love-making that morning. It occurred to him at once that she was deliberately working on him, reminding him of what he was giving up, and he felt a stirring of the resentment and frustration which had periodically marred their relationship for months. He repressed the emotions, making a resolution to get all he could from the hours they had left.

They reached the path, crossed it together and leaned on the safety rail which skirted the dark rim. Dallen, shading his eyes, stared down into the blackness and a moment later he was able to see the stars.

The surrounding brightness affected his vision to the extent that he could pick out only the principal star groupings, but he was immediately inspired with a primeval awe. He had lived all his life on the inner surface of the Orbitsville shell and therefore his only direct looks at the rest of the galaxy had come during his rare visits to this aperture. When I get to Earth, he told himself, marvelling, I’ll be able to drink my fill of stars every night …

“I don’t like this,” Cona said. “I feel I’m going to fall through.”

Dallen shook his head. “No danger. The diaphragm field is strong enough to take anybody’s weight.”

“Meaning?” She gave him a playful shunt with her hips. “Are you suggesting I’m too heavy?”

“Never!” Dallen gave his wife a warm glance, appreciating the good humour with which she faced her weight problems. She was fair-haired and had the kind of neat, absolutely regular features which are often associated with obesity. By careful dieting she had usually kept her weight within a few kilos of the ideal, but since the birth of their son three months earlier her struggle had been more difficult.

The thought of Mikel and of leaving him disturbed Dallen’s moment of rapport. It had taken him the best part of a year to secure the transfer to Earth, with its consequent promotion to Grade IV officer in the Metagov civil service. Cona had been aware of his plans throughout her pregnancy, but not until after the birth had she revealed her determination to remain behind on Orbitsville. Her overt reason for not accompanying him had been that Mikel was too young for the journey and the drastic change of climate, but Dallen suspected otherwise and his pride was hurt. He knew she was reluctant to leave her ailing father, and also that—as a professional historian—she was deeply committed to her current book on Orbitsville’s Judean settlements. The former had allowed no scope for recrimination, but the latter had been the source of many arguments which had been none the less corrosive for being disguised as rational discussion or banter. Being Jewish is like a religion with some people …

Something huge moved in the black depths below Dallen, startling him and causing Cona to jump backwards from the rail. After a second he identified it as an interportal freighter slipping through space only fifty metres or so beneath his feet, like a silent leviathan swimming for the opposite shore of a black lake. His gaze followed the ship until it was lost in the mirages which overlay the more distant parts of the diaphragm field. At the far side of the kilometre-wide aperture was the space terminal where he would soon embark for Earth. Its passenger buildings and warehouses were a dominant feature of the scene, even though the principal installations—the giant docking cradles for starships—projected downwards into the void and were not readily visible.

“This place bothers me,” Cona said. “Everything’s more natural in Bangor.”

Dallen knew she was referring to the fact that their home town of Bangor, 16,000 kilometres into Orbitsville’s interior, was situated in Earth-like hilly terrain. Its official altitude was close to a thousand metres, which meant that amount of sedimentary rock had accumulated there in the Orbitsville shell, but Dallen understood that the geological structure counted for little. Without the enclosing skin of ylem, the enigmatic material of which the vast sphere was formed, the inner layer of rock, soil and vegetation would quickly succumb to instabilities and fly apart. It was an uneasy thought, but one which disturbed only visitors and newly arrived settlers. Anybody who had been born on Orbitsville had total faith in its permanence, knew it to be more durable than mere planets.

“We don’t have to stay here,” Dallen said. “We could try the rose gardens.”

“Not yet.” Cona fingered the jewel-like recorder which was clipped to her saffron blouse. “I’d like to get some pictures of the Garamond monument. I might want to include one in the book.”

You’re supposed to be seeing me off—not working, Dallen objected inwardly, wondering if she had brought in the mention of the book to trigger precisely that reaction. Among the things which had attracted him to Cona in the first place was her independence, and he could see that he had no right to try changing the rules of their relationship. It was good that she was self-willed and self-reliant, but—the thought refused to be dismissed—how much better everything would have been had they been going to Earth together, sharing all the new experiences the journey had to offer.

There was, of course, an alternative to his present course, the alternative repeatedly put forward by Cona. All he had to do was delay his transfer by a couple of years, by which time Mikel would be bigger and stronger. Cona would have finished her book by then and would be mentally primed and prepared to enter an exciting new phase of her life.

Dallen was surprised by a sudden cool tingling on his spine. A radical idea was forming in his mind, thrilling him with its total unexpectedness. There was, he had just realised, still enough time in which to change his plans! He could get out of going to Earth merely by not showing up when the flight was called.

Bureaucratic though Metagov departments were, they all recognised and accepted one fact of human nature—that some people simply could not face the psychological rigours of interstellar travel. Backing down at the last minute and running away so commonplace that there was a slang term for it—the funk bunk—and no passenger’s baggage was ever loaded until after he or she had gone aboard.

There was no shame in it, Dallen told himself. No shame in being flexible, in adapting to circumstances the way other people did. He had the opportunity to make a grand, romantic gesture of unselfishness, and there was no need to reveal to anybody, least of all to his wife, that it was actually a supremely selfish act in that it would enable him to hold on to what he cherished.

“Monument. Photograph.” Cona wiggled her fingers close to his eyes. “Remember?”

“I’m with you,” Dallen said bemusedly, trying to reassemble his internal model of the universe with different building blocks. He walked with Cona along the edge of the aperture to where the path widened into a small semi-circular plaza. Standing at its focus, on the very rim of space, was an heroic bronze of a man wearing a space suit of a design that had been in service two centuries earlier. He had taken off his helmet and was holding it in one hand while, with the other hand shading his eyes, he scanned the horizon. The statue was deservedly famous because its creator had captured a certain expression on the spaceman’s face. It was a look of awe combined with peace and fulfilment which struck a responsive chord with all who had had the experience of climbing through an Orbitsville portal from the sterile blackness of space and receiving their first glimpse of the grassy infinites within.

A plaque at the foot of the statue said, simply: VANCE GARAMOND, EXPLORER.

Cona, who had never seen the monument before, said, “I must have a picture.” She left Dallen’s side and moved away among the knots of sightseers who were standing in the multi-lingual information beams being projected from the statue’s base. Dallen, still lost in his own thoughts, advanced until a wash of coloured light flooding into his eyes told him that one of the roving beams had centred itself on his face. There was a barely perceptible delay while the projector studied his optical response to subliminal signals and correctly deduced that his first language was English, then the presentation began.

Most of his field of view was suddenly occupied by images focused directly on to his retinas. They were of a triple-hulled starship, as seen from space, manoeuvring closer to a circular aperture in the Orbitsville shell. A voice which was neither male nor female spoke to Dallen.

It was almost two centuries ago—in the year 2096—that the first spaceship from Earth reached Optima Thule. That vessel was the Bissendorf, part of a large fleet of exploratory ships owned and operated by Starflight Incorporated, the historic company which at that time bad a monopoly of space travel. The Bissendorf was under the command of Captain Vance Garamond.

You are now standing at the exact place where Captain Garamond, after forcing his way through the diaphragm field which retains our atmosphere, first set foot on the soil of Optima Thule…

The images were now a reconstruction of the first landing, showing Garamond and some of his crew on the virgin plain which was currently occupied by the sprawling expanse of Beachhead City. Relevant facts were murmured in Dallen’s ears only to glance off the barriers of his preoccupation. What was to prevent him from actually doing it? What would it matter to the universe at large if he did not make the flight to Earth? There would be some fierce ribbing from the other pilot officers in the Boundaries Commission if he returned to his old job, but where were his personal priorities? What was the opinion of outsiders compared to the feelings and needs of his own wife? And there was three-month old Mikel …

The ruined fortifications visible to your right are among the few remaining traces of the Primer civilisation which flourished on Optima Thule some twenty thousand years ago. Although we know very little about the Primers, we can be sure they were a very energetic and ambitious race. Having discovered Optima Thule, they attempted to control the whole sphere—regardless of the fact that it has a usable land area equivalent to five billion Earths. To this end, they performed the incredible engineering feat of sealing with armour plate all but one of Optima Thule’s 548 portals.

Opinions differ about whether they were vanquished by subsequent arrivals, or whether they were simply absorbed by the sheer vastness of the territories they bad attempted to claim. However, one of the first actions of the Optima Thule Metagovernment was to order the unsealing of all the portals, thereby giving every nation on Earth unlimited and free access to …

Cartoon animations floated on the surface of Dallen’s vision. Miniature ships were firing miniature radiation weapons, progressively clearing Orbitsville’s triple band of portals, allowing the enclosed sun to spill more and more of its beckoning rays into the surrounding blackness of space.

The migrations from Earth began immediately, and continued at a high level of activity for a century and a half. In the beginning the journey took four months, but there came many rapid improvements in spaceship design which eventually cut transit time to a matter of days. At the height of the migrations more than ten million people a year were arriving at the equatorial portals, a transport undertaking of such magnitude that…

Annoyed by the intrusive voice and images, Dallen turned away sharply and broke the beam contact. He retreated to the curving edge of the plaza and sat down on a bench to watch Cona taking her holographic pictures of the monument. Again it seemed to him that her interest in the statue and its historic associations was a little too evident, that she was putting on a show for his benefit. The message was that she would be fully occupied in getting on with her own life while they were apart, but did he have to interpret that as defiance? Was it not possible, knowing Cona, that she was only trying to make things easier for him by not clinging on?

I’d be crazy to cut myself off from this, he thought, poised on the edge of a decision. He stood up and waved as Cona lowered her recorder and turned to look for him. She waved back and zigzagged towards him through the clusters of wide-brimmed hats which were worn almost universally on Orbitsville as protection from the sun’s vertical rays. He smiled, trying to visualise how she was going to react to his momentous news. He had the choice of breaking it to her suddenly, going for maximum dramatic effect, or of a more oblique approach in which, perhaps, he would begin by suggesting that they go out of the hotel that light for a special celebration dinner.

Cona had just cleared the groups of sightseers when two boys of about ten ran up to her. She halted and, after a short exchange of words, opened her purse and gave them some money. The boys ran off immediately, laughing and pushing at each other as they went.

“Young monkeys,” Cona said on reaching Dallen. “They said they needed carfare home, but you could see they were heading straight for the soda machines.”

An inner voice pleaded with Dallen to ignore the incident, but he was unable to control his reaction. “So why did you give them the money?”

“They were just a couple of kids.”

“That’s precisely the point. They were just a couple of kids and you taught them it pays to ask strangers for hand-outs.”

“For God’s sake, Garry, try to relax.” Cona’s voice was lightly scornful. “It was only fifty cents.”

“The amount doesn’t come into it.” Dallen stared hard at his wife, furious with her for the way she was casually destroying what had promised to be the most perfect moment of their lives. “Do you really think I give a damn whether it was fifty cents or fifty monits? Do you?”

“I didn’t realise you were so hot on child welfare.” Cona, standing within the vertical column of shade from her hat, might have retreated into a separate world.

“And what does that mean?” he asked, knowing exactly what it meant and challenging her to use Mikel as a weapon against him. They were standing on the edge of a precipice and the ground was breaking away beneath their feet, but the big drop might still be avoided if only she held back from using Mikel.

“This touching concern for strange kids,” Cona said. “It seems slightly out of place in a man who is about to jaunt off to Earth and leave his own son.”

“I … ” I'm not going, Dallen prompted himself. Say it right now—I'm not going to Earth. He strove to force the crucial words into being, but all human warmth had fled his soul. He turned away from his wife, sick with disappointment, locked in combat with the chill, haughty, inflexible side of his own nature, and knowing in advance that it was a battle he could never win.

Three hours later Dallen was on the observation gallery of the passenger ship Runcorn as it detached from the docking cradle and climbed away from the humbling and inconceivable vastness of the Orbitsville shell.

The ship was moving very slowly in the early stages of the flight, its magnetic scoop fields unable to gather much reaction mass in a region of space that had been well scoured by other vessels. As a consequence, the one-kilometre aperture around which Beachhead City was built remained visible for some thirty minutes, only gradually narrowing to become a bright ellipse and then a line of light which shortened and finally vanished. But even when the Runcorn was several thousand kilometres into space the inexperienced traveller could have been forgiven for thinking the ship had come to rest only a short distance “above” the shell. At that range Orbitsville was still only half of the visible universe, a seemingly flat surface which occupied a full 180° of the field of vision, the closest approximation in reality to the imagined infinite plane of the geometer.

Also, it was black.

Except in the vicinity of a portal, there was nothing to see when one looked in the direction of Orbitsville. There were no errant chinks of light, no reflections. As far as the evidence of the eye was concerned the familiar cosmos, which was so richly spangled with stars and galaxies and braids of glowing gas, had been sliced in half. There was a hemisphere of sparkling illumination and a hemisphere of darkness—and the latter was the stupendous, invisibly brooding presence that was Orbitsville. And even at a range of a billion kilometres, a distance which light itself took almost an hour to traverse, the sphere was awesome. It registered as a monstrous black hole which had eaten out the centre of the sky

What, Dallen wondered, must the crew of the Bissendorf have thought when they were making that first approach all that time ago? What was going through their minds as they saw the edges of the dark circle balloon steadily outwards to occlude half the cosmos?

He could imagine those first explorers inclining to the idea that they had encountered a Dyson’s Sphere. The 20th Century concept was that, in order to meet all its land and energy requirements, a highly advanced civilisation would eventually need to englobe its parent sun and spread across the inside of the spher. . .