Gc A Journey -3-

While working almost forty years for Galactographic Magazine, I have travelled to the furthest regions of the Union and reported and told you all about the most unusual places and people. Yet I have never really written or talked about the Sol System. Now I was born on a floating city of Jupiter. I work for UGM and have an office at their headquarters here on Mercury. My wife  was born on Sedna, a large Asteroid in the Oort Cloud, about as far as you can be from our Star which is officially named Sol, but most of us still call it simply “The Sun”. My boss, a Saresii lives on Earth and my colleague Nine-Zero-Seven, a Non Corp lives on Venus. My wife and I decided to buy a small Living- Asteroid in the Kuiper Belt. Just a small dirt ball, really but the previous owners had renovated and it is just as we always wanted a home inside. Now my editor and boss Miscyri Laydnee,, the lovley Saresii usually smiling at you from her column image inside the cover had an idea for a new Feature series. She wanted me to take a Journey from Sol Castle to Distant Shores Station, the furthest outpost of the Union accessible to Civilians in the Andromeda Galaxy and write not only about the destination but the Journey itself and the stops in between. I will use all possible traffic options : Transmatter Tunnels, Space Tram, train and bus. Space ships and whatever else is there.

So for my first stop on this long journey I need to go to Sol Castle.

SOL CASTLE

So I begin my journey out of my Office that is on the 200th floor of the United Publishers building. It reaches exactly 1000 meters into the sky and pierces the dome above Heliocaminus City at 300 meters. This floor and seven floors beneath me, belonged to UGM. Other magazines are edited, produced and published here, and all belong to the Apollonia Media Group. The corridor outside my office is leads me to a bank of Inter Building Transport Columns and I take one. The IBT carries me on the outside of the building downwards. The vista was not very special as we were in the Mercury night period took almost 88 earth days and it was completely dark outside the domed city. To the east was the original SII Needle, SII had its first HQ right here on Mercury and while they had moved their HQ to Omni Planet, SII maintained its payroll office here and it is by far the largest single employer in the Inner Solar System. Now the IBT car had sunk beneath the dome and was approaching street level fast. Here underneath the Dome Earth time was kept (GMT) and it was just about noon. The sky was baby blue with only a few lazily floating cumulus clouds. Of course clouds, sky and even the sun was just a projection. I found it funny to think that they simulated the Sun here on Mercury, but then during the long Mercury Night it was very dark outside and way too bright on the Day side, for human eyes. Office workes were streaming out of the surrounding buildings to have lunch, Some of them would head for the Mozart Crater Park and buy lunch from any of the vendor bots, some would take the Matter Tunnel to Earth and eat there and others  spent their lunch hour right here along Heliocaminus Boulevard with many lunch restaurant options. I saw Klack crowding a Sugar Water dealer, easily recognized by his bright red and green uniform and the floating vendor stand. I actually knew him, his name was K'thkik and he was a wonderful source of information when I did that story on Klack Sugar Water. He was too busy to notice me now, so I stepped onto a slide belt segment and said. “Mono Rail.” The invisible field microphones projected all over the street picked up my request and the slidebelt segment I was standing on changed lanes and linked into the main line. This was a modern two speed two direction slide way with 300 x 150 cm syntho-rubber squares linked to each other. Unlike simple belt ways, slide belt ways could accept destination wishes and each segment could be linked and unlinked to join or leave slide streams to reach a destination. Soft assist fields kept passengers from hurting themselves or falling over during direction changes. My destination was the Tuttle Shuttle Port and it was on the other side of the planet, I could have used the TransPlanet shooter or the new Transmatter Connection between Heliocaminus and Rembrandt City, but I opted for the old and still popular surface Mono Rail that connected all towns and cities on Mercury. MMRS had a reputation for great passenger service and providing an excellent lunch. The slide way carried me to the Monorail station and the projected float a sign informed me that the next train would arrive in 12 minutes. The train would make the trip to Rembrandt in 7 hours and 45 minutes. It travelled at nearly 1000km/hr but it made a few stops along the way. The Planet shooter could make the trip in two hours and of course TransMatter was instantaneous, but I looked forward to a pan seared Ilasian goat filet. Of course I could have printed me a steak or a meal at any of the Public Vent-Matic, but no matter how much SII Foods and the other Vat and Artif Food Companies claimed that it was as good as the real thing,I still believed to taste a difference.

I stepped onto the elevated Mono Rail platform and was pleasantly surprised to see a sizeable crowd waiting for the next train. The Mono Rail was after all the oldest mass transportation system here on Mercury and it first opened 2,399 and since it was 5050 accroding to the OTT Calendar that happened  2,651 years ago. Of course it had been modernized an expanded many times since then, it was still an ancient concept. Like most citizens of the Sol System I preferred Old Terran Time over Union Standard. It had primarily to do with the human biological clock that, after all this time still had the old Planets rhythm imprinted and to us Humans of Terran descent, the day with 24 hours and a Year wit 12 Month and 365 Days simply felt right.

The Monorail platform was transparent tunnel with two tracks. The Aequator West and the Equator East track. The Double track cicrled the Mercury completley around and a round trip took a little over 14 hours. The tracks itself were made of Compacted Duro Crete, as it was imrevious to the large temperature changes and were elevated about 30 meters above the actual ground. The line had a few tunnels as well, if I recalled, as I made the last trip with the Mono rail about 10 years ago. The transparent pipe tunnel was closed with a tripple force field membrane and could be closed with a physical gate in seconds. A melodic sound rising through the entire Audio Spectrum announced the arrival of the Noon 20 train. Colorful safety energy curtains shot up so no one could step onto the actual tracks, of course companies did not miss the opportunity to project advertisement and public safety announcements on the energy curtains and I was reminded that Polonium Coins despite their popularity on worlds outside the Union and despite their rad shield casings were illegal on Mercury to be carried around and that every Union Bank would gladly issue a Credit Box in the equal amount. I had made a living travelling to the fringes of the Union and knew about this dangerous habit of Non Union civilizations. I had paid informants with Polo coins myself and always carried an Auto Doc able to neutralize Polonium Poisoning, but I was glad it was outlawed as a form of tender within the Union. On my desk in the Office I still had a plastic bag full of Attikan Attipaw Coins the only legal Coinage form of tender in the Union as far as I knew. The train came in and despite the tight seal of the membrane forcefield brought along a fine scent of  metal and dust. It was called the Scent of Mercury by the locals and there were protests when the Mono rail company wanted to fix and tighten the forcefield seal, by adding a mirror silicone layer to the trains. There was only a trace atmosphere out there and no one could ever take a breath outside so this was the only way smelling how Mercury was supposed to smell if it had a breathable atmosphere. I knew school classes came here only for that and the Oh and ah of children not far from where I was standing confirmed that there was a class here today. The train itself looked sleek an bluish silver with large view ports and twelve segments. It was 20 meters in diameter and about 1000 meters long. It featured luxury cabins with sleeping accomoations, a fast food restaurant and a fine dining compartment. There was a spa and there were shops. I purchased a Top Lux Cabin via my PDD and it communicated with the PDD of a Klack in Mono Rail Uniform. The Klack wiggled his antenna and this member of the largest Union Member civilization said via his voice box. “Welcome Sir, your cabin is upper tier number 4. I wish you a pleasant trio to Rembrandt City.” I thanked him and asked. “Whatis on the menu today?” Our famous Ilasian Goat of course and we have a rare delicacy called Fangsnapper Steak all the way from Planet Nilfeheim.” “Reserve me a table for 1400.” “Yes Sir, table is booked.” I always  loved the interior of these old Mono Rail trains with red carpet, wood paneling and polished brass. In here there was not a hint of the Scent of Mercury, but an aroma of Vanilla, coffee and the faint odor of cigar smoke from the smokers lounge. Here everything was still a little Retro Earth and even the most progessive minded Terran Human always felt quite at home in an atmosphere like this. The Cabin was cozy and comfortable with corduroy upholstery, brocate curtains and a nice table of polished wood right next to the large window. It didn't take long and the Mono rail departed and slipped through the other energy curtain and accelerated fast. The old trains used if I remembered the explanation of the Museum guide correctly a system of magnets that made the train hover. This modern train used ArtiGrav to neutralize its own mass and a  projected Grav repulsor point at the end of the train, there was nothing in the actual tracks needed for propulsion. The Landscape outside was more or less invisible as it was very dark, but occasionally there were lighs of a surface settlement or the dancing lights of a crawler. The character of Mercury outside the domed and underground cities had changed little since man came first to this harsh world. Then a large industrial complex with thousands of flood lights looked like a christmas tree. That huge plant was pumping liquid iron from the core and processing it in large Billets, strings of steel 50 meters long and 5 meters thick. Each of those strings hundreds of tons loaded aboard sturdy and ugly transporters and shipped to Sol Hub where the steel was sold and shipped wherever steel and iron was needed. The bright red glow of the hellish hot metal liquid pouring from forcefield pipes could be seen from miles away. Only a few years ago I had done a feature on that Iron Pump and Steel Mill. It was almost time so I made my way to the Restaurant.

 I decided against my all time favoite and opted for the Nilfeheim Special. It was started with with white sea weed bud bread stuffed with crisp fried Snapper bacon and glazed Onions. It was even more delicious as  it sounded. The waiter, a distinguished Thauran was about as perfect as a waiter could be. He knew the food and where it came from, how it was eaten and what  went with it, He recommended  a crisp beer from Planet Holstein for the appetizer and for the Tyranno Fin Fish stew   ala Olafson a spirited wine from the Thauran Planet Azure. The Stew was as good as any bouliabase I ever tasted and the Fangsnapper steak had a strong but very tasty flavor. The meal ended with traditional Neo Viking Sweet Meats and a cup of strong terran coffee. Now carefully swirling a fine Carlos Primeros Brandy from Spain Earth and a real tobbacco cigar hand rolled and selected on a planet called Tabacum almost 1000 Light years from here, between my fingers, I stared out the view port seeing nothing but my own reflection and a few dots of light in the far distance. I knew we were crossing the Caloris Basin impact region and would soon make the first stop at Ilias where the Homer plane begun and the Mono rail train would pass from night into day. In my mind there wasn't anything more fascinating than our own United Stars of the Galaxies. I picked up the leather bound elegant menu and leaved through the culinary offerings and it read like a star map. Trolom soup from across the Bridge, Aroma Grass Cakes from the Attikan Commonwealth in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Saresii Salad, Ultanese Huglan with squiggle worms, Klack Honey Water Wine and this was only a small cross section of what was available on a Mono Rail train restaurant. I had seen the menu choices on Luxury Clippers of curse and then there was GalNet where everything could be ordered. Even hot meals delivered in Zero Stasis Boxes. Mercry had a predominant human population but that did not mean there were no other Union Members. There were of course Klack and Ult and Andorians, there was a large Sauron and a Spindlar and a group of chirping Holdians right here in the Restaurant. The Waiter came and asked me politley, “Sir we are seated to capacity and I have a guest who likes to dine, would it be acceptable if he shares your table?” “No not at all , I am almost done anyway. “ “Please don't hurry Sir. You have not tried our Archa Ice Cream yet.” “Archa Ice Cream?” “Archa is the name for a planet and a species that is far in the Coreward Sector that is Galactic south to the Klack Empire. They discovered ice cream about 30 years ago and have not only become the biggest per capita consumers of ice cream but also the greatest ice cream experts.” A tall very black man approached the table, he wore the Navy Black Uniform of a Commodore  an as I glanced on his Ribbon display, I noticed the Blue of the Medal of Honor and a host of other high decorations, He bowed stiffly and said, “Shaka Nebele, the Maitre De said it would be alright,,” I got up and extended my hand, “But of course Commodore Nebele. I am Cunningham, Alex Cunningham.” “Not the same  Alex Cunningham who writes for Union Galactographic Magazine?” I could not help the feeling of professional pride as such a distinguished high ranking officer of the fleet recognized my name. “The same.” I gestured and the Commodore sat down across me and my chin dropped as I noticed the Devastator Honor Ribbon underneath the Helmsman logo. He had served aboard the most famous ship of the Galaxy, an his rank pins made him a Battle Group Commodore. The small golden 1 above his rank pins declared him to be  Battle Group Commodore of the First Fleet. In civilian terms he was a Navy Celebrity of the top tier, He most likely spoke with the Eternal Warrior himself on a daily basis. But as amazing all this was, the reason fr his dropping chin was the blue and black service pin with the little shark symbol. This man had served aboard the Tigershark. Only last year did the Navy acknowledge its existence and released some of he accomplishments and adventures of that ship and crew. When Stahl revealed on Channel 1 some of the things this crew did  the Union had a new buzz word  “Tigershark” and the declassified version of its Logbook became the most popoular download on GalNet. Every reporter and media man would give his soul to the devil to speak to one  of that ships crew and yet I didn't want to alienate the man by bombarding him with questions. So I bit my tongue and said nothing.”

 The black man smiled disarmingly and said. “ I can’t tell you all too much as it is still classified and I take my oath and all that quite seriously, but not all is secret.” He pointed at the menu. “The Ice cream thing   was started by my dearest friends Krabbel and Mao Vouza, both former shipmates of mine.”

 “Sir, I read the declassified Version of the Tigershark log. I heard the Eternal Warrior speak about you and we all know it is only about ten percent of what really happened and even those ten percent are almost unbeliveable. “ I babbled like a water fall hoping to say the right things and added. “I didn’t mean unbelieveable. I meant utterly fascinating. Did you really travel with Sobody the Merchant? Is it true you encountered real Ghosts and a living Dust Cloud?”

 The black man stared dreamingly past me and out the window. “Yes Mr.Cunnigham we travelled with Sobody,   Ordbeer is as real a Ghost as science allows for those things and Dusty almost crushed our ship to bits before he too became a friend.” He sighed. “It is only ten years ago I we completed out last mission on the Tigershark. I am married now, have two kids I am very proud of and the Eternal Warrior has put me in line for the Captain Seat of the Dominator but I miss these days