The starchild compact, p.11
The Starchild Compact, page 11
#
Saeed was back in Sickbay, restrained to the bed he had occupied before his interrogation. Carmen was in the general area, but spending more time with Chen. Saeed had access to the ship's vast entertainment system, but anything related to the Caliphate or to Islam had been blocked. Although the restriction disturbed him, he found that he actually enjoyed watching some of the modern sitcoms. When he tired of them, he would shut his eyes and review the portions of the Qur'an he had already memorized. He found that by concentrating, he could recall many pages, as if he were reading from the screen.
Saeed was in the midst of one such internal recitation when Ari glided into Sickbay and shook him into awareness of his immediate surroundings. "Come with me," Ari addressed him in Arabic. "The Captain wishes to speak with you." Ari detached him from his restraints, cuffed his hands behind his back, and unceremoniously pulled Saeed like a sack of flour forward to Deck Two. As they moved through the ship, fear arose in Saeed once more. He had cooperated, hadn't he? Remembering his shame, he girded himself for the inevitable. They would ask him questions. He would refuse to answer. They would threaten him again, and this time he would become a martyr. But as they moved through the ship, and as he observed so many things he had never before seen, things for which he had no names, and whose functions he could only imagine, he changed his tack. If he would redeem himself from his former shame, simple martyrdom would not do. He would have to take them with him. He was meant to survive until that moment presented itself.
Ari pushed Saeed through the door into the Captain's private quarters, and brought him to an awkward stance, floating vertically off the deck before the seated man who had nearly ended his life so recently. He was a big, powerful man, perhaps 183 or 184 centimeters, powerfully built, with a face that hid a cruelty that caused Saeed to wilt behind his stoic mask.
"You will address the Captain in English," Ari said to him in Arabic.
"Aqa Captain Stock." Saeed bent at the waist in what would have been a bow in gravity, but what became an awkward tumble in their zero-g environment. "I meant no disrespect Aqa Captain." Saeed managed to straighten himself out and regain a bit of personal dignity. "I offer you my service. My life is in your hands, as Allah wishes, may He be praised."
Saeed fully expected to be battered around by this powerful man, and was prepared to accept whatever happened as if it came from Allah himself. Instead, he heard the Captain say in a quiet, almost gentle voice, "We have a problem, Mr. Esmail, a problem that you can solve for us."
This took Saeed by complete surprise. A man of power in his world acted powerfully, spoke with power, punished with power. But this powerful man, this man with the power of life and death spoke evenly, without rancor. Saeed listened carefully.
"You were sent here to destroy us and our mission. I cannot allow that. But I am not now willing to end your life. This vessel has no brig. I have no way to confine you, except as I have already done, by tying you to a bed. You are a human being, and I am reluctant to do this to you for the remaining months of this mission. So now you understand my problem. To guarantee the safety of this mission, I must kill you…but I don't want to do that. My only alternative is to confine you to a bunk for the duration." The Captain stopped talking, and Saeed waited for him to continue. The pause grew longer…thirty seconds…a full minute…a minute and a half, and still the Captain said nothing.
Finally, Saeed felt the words escape his lips, almost as if they had done so on their own accord. "But I can give you my word to do no harm."
"You're a Jihadist Warrior…you swore an oath before Allah to carry out your mission. How can I believe you, or trust that you will keep your word?"
"I can swear another, greater oath to Allah," Saeed heard himself saying, almost as if something or someone else were causing him to speak. And then, at that exact moment, he understood. Allah had opened another door into his future. His destiny, his mission was not here on this space ship, it was out there on Iapetus. The words of his epiphany rose unbidden into his mind: Let those fight in the way of Allah who sell the life of this world for the other. Whoso fighteth in the way of Allah, be he slain or be he victorious, on him we shall bestow a vast reward.
It was crystal clear now. Saeed knew what to do. He straightened as well as possible, came to attention, and said formally in Arabic, "Before Allah, may He be blessed, and all that is holy, I swear a mighty oath to abide by my word, to renounce my Jihad, to serve the Captain and crew of Cassini II, to give my life in their defense if necessary. I bind myself to this oath under penalty of eternal damnation. All praises to Allah."
#
Ari translated Saeed's words to Jon, and said, "You can trust him."
"That's it, then," Jon said. "Remove his cuffs and find him a place to bunk."
Chapter 11
Jon had briefed Rod Zakes in detail about Saeed's truce. The message commenced its nearly forty minute journey before Jon retired for the night. The next morning, Jon ran Rod's lengthy response through his decoder, and then read his remarks with considerable interest. The first part of the message concerned logistics. Their nominal time to Jupiter was 57.7 days. Their nominal time from Jupiter to the braking burn without the boost was 56.5 days, but with the boost was about 49 days. Houston said they would know with more accuracy after the boost. Their Jupiter approach and departure paths took them through several radiation belts, but Houston assured Jon that the hull would stop the radiation – except at perigee, where they would have to remain in the Core for several hours.
Rod then informed Jon that Houston had picked up considerable chatter from the Caliphate about a forthcoming announcement of great importance. Jinnah had received no communications from the Caliphate, and had no idea what the chatter was about. Without further information, Rod's best guess was that the Caliph intended to announce the presence of Saeed on Cassini II. With the current state of tensions between the Caliphate and the West, Rod said Houston's best take was that such an announcement could trigger demonstrations and riots across the non-Caliphate Muslim world.
Jon could see it coming before he read it. Houston had decided to preempt the announcement. The American ambassador to the Caliphate had already requested an audience with the Caliph, and his staff had managed to set the meeting for 1530 Tehran time, which was 0600 Houston time. At that time, or as soon thereafter as the ambassador's staff informed Houston that the meeting was taking place, Houston would announce to the world that a Persian lad working at L-4 had managed to sequester himself aboard the Cassini II, and that he was just discovered. The announcement would include the information that the Caliph had been informed about the stowaway, and that the Cassini Coalition would ensure the safety of the Caliphate's wayward citizen. The announcement would also inform the world that the crew had accommodated the young man, and that they were confident he would become a contributing member of the crew. Privately, the Caliph would be told about Saeed's radiation dose, and informed that he was sequestered under guard, and would be dealt with appropriately upon the ship's return to Earth. Rod explained that Houston would be feeding information through Jinnah to the Caliphate that Saeed had found a sympathetic crew member, and using this guise, Houston would feed misinformation to the Caliph in an effort to discover his underlying motive – if there was one beyond sheer Jihad destruction.
Jon summoned the crew on All-Call to meet in the Canteen. Demitri and Ginger floated in together followed by Noel who was rubbing sleep from his eyes. Ari arrived with a wide-eyed Saeed in tow. Michele and Elke arrived next, appearing slightly disheveled and a bit flustered. Carmen showed up a minute later with a holodisplay of the still unconscious Chen floating beside her. Jon acknowledged their arrivals, tossing an apologetic grin at Michele and Elke. As usual, the crew assumed their now customary positions in the Canteen. They each "owned" a spot by some unspoken agreement. As they arrived, Jon marveled again at the crew's wide diversity in physical size and life-style perspective coupled to a remarkable degree of competence. He smiled as he recalled their initial meeting in the L-4 lounge – their verbal jostling and posturing. They were a well-honed team now, with – he reminded himself – some interesting internal dynamics.
"By now, you will all have met our newest crew member, Saeed Esmail. While I am deeply disturbed at how Saeed got here, he has convinced me that he no longer poses a threat. He has vowed to become a productive member of the crew, and I intend to give him that chance – with one absolute proviso. Saeed must have a crew member near him at all times, except when he is sleeping. Saeed, you bear the ultimate responsibility for ensuring someone is always near you. You gave me your word, and I have accepted it, but I would be failing in my job as Captain if I did not take this precaution. We all are on this venture together. Our lives are completely interdependent – yours too, Saeed.
"We are in the final stages of the Jupiter boost, plunging toward the gas giant at one-hundred-eighty kilometers a second, and accelerating as we approach. We will be traveling well over two-hundred kilometers per second at perigee, and once we depart the immediate vicinity of Jupiter, we will recalculate our orbit and conduct a corrective burn to put us on our final leg to Iapetus. We will be passing through several radiation belts in the next few days. All but the one at perigee are virtually harmless to us inside our hull. Be prepared to assemble inside the Core at fifteen-hundred hours three days from now." Jon looked at each crew member. "Including Chen, Doc," he said directly to Carmen.
"We'll continue the watch rotation in the Core," Jon said. "The likelihood of something happening that our actions might ameliorate is pretty small. But since we are otherwise just passengers until we arrive at Iapetus, we might as well be prepared for even remote possibility events."
"Like an asteroid hit," Demitri commented. Nobody laughed.
#
Ari was confident that Saeed would keep his word for the time being. His worry, however, was that as time passed, Saeed's thoughts would turn back to his original mission. Saeed's oath bound him as well as anything could, but the moment he perceived that Allah had released him from that oath, all bets were off. Ari determined to be present when that happened – and he was certain it would.
There was no way to know what lay ahead on Iapetus. In the meantime, however, Ari had a major potential problem on his hands – the tether. And he felt the need to babysit Saeed, which further complicated things. From what he could tell, Saeed had no practical skills. He had virtually no knowledge of how the universe actually functioned. He had no science background, knew nothing of history, except a distorted version seen through a Qur'anic lens. He didn't understand economics, except in its simplest sense, couched in terms of wages for work accomplished. The one area in which Saeed excelled was his knowledge of the Qur'an. Ari was astonished to learn that Saeed had memorized long sections of Qur'anic scripture, although his understanding of what those passages meant often bore little resemblance to what they seemed to mean to Ari when he read them. Saeed appeared to be the product of a madrasa that had prepared him for the sole task of martyrdom.
In his new role as a crew member, Saeed appeared eager to learn. Because of his lack of a technical background, he could do little more than memorize sequences of actions for any of the ships' systems. To Ari's surprise, however, Saeed had a knack for manipulating the gyros. Once Ari showed him what to do, Saeed seemed to go by instinct. Within a few hours he was nearly as good as Ari at moving the ship from one orientation to another. Ari suspected that with more practice, Saeed would exceed his own ability.
#
Saeed took great pleasure in assisting Carmen. He was genuinely concerned about Chen's condition, and spent hours watching over him, exercising his limbs, and caring for him. He also enjoyed talking with Carmen about their respective religions, frequently in Arabic. Saeed sensed quickly that the Doctor was the only crew member with a deep-seated faith, and although he considered her to be an infidel, her Christian faith was preferable to no faith at all, which is what he observed in the rest of the crew.
Ari was an enigma for Saeed, who had never personally known a Jew. When he brought this up to Ari, Ari had told him in no uncertain terms that he was Israeli, and that aboard Cassini II, one's background and religious belief were unimportant. Ari took the trouble to explain things in detail to Saeed, in Arabic if that was what it took for Saeed to understand. Saeed quickly discovered that his education was sorely lacking, and he absorbed information like a sponge. He was particularly pleased that he could reorient the ship at least as well as Ari could, although he had no idea how his manipulations actually caused the ship to twist and turn. He suspected there was very much to learn before he would understand such things. In the meantime, however, Saeed memorized everything the crew members showed him.
Saeed never forgot his oath before Allah. His cooperation, his willingness to learn, to participate was genuine. Nevertheless, he also never forgot his original purpose and his epiphany in his hideout. The wonderful words of his Qur'anic calling formed the backdrop for his every action: Let those fight in the way of Allah who sell the life of this world for the other. Whoso fighteth in the way of Allah, be he slain or be he victorious, on him we shall bestow a vast reward. He had, indeed traded his life on Earth for that out here – on Iapetus, even. And thus, he was commanded to fight in the way of Allah. Having done so, win or lose, he would receive his ultimate reward. For the time being, his fighting mode was to hunker down, and to await Allah's message releasing him from his oath.
#
Jupiter loomed large, and then very large, as Cassini II raced toward perigee. Ginger found herself spending more time than usual gazing through the port at the churning inferno that was Jupiter's atmosphere. As a child, she had watched Jupiter's moons through her twenty centimeter reflector, tracking their progress around the gas giant, thrilled that she could reach out with her extended eyes to a dynamic universe. Then she discovered the historical records of the fly-bys and the deep-space photography of the Hubble and its successor. As she progressed with her education, her interests became more specific, so that during her Stanford PhD days, she actually was allotted time slots with the L-4 Deep-space Telescope. First it was Jupiter, but when she reviewed the Cassini fly-by of Saturn and the close-ups of Iapetus, she was hooked. Ginger was fascinated by the narrow equatorial mountain range that ringed the moon – twenty kilometers high and twenty kilometers wide, like a wall that had lost its geometric definition to the ravages of time and an incoming hail of meteorites drawn in by Saturn's mass. Then there was the tower in the southern hemisphere, rising like a pencil a kilometer-and-a-half above the surrounding plain. Ginger had mapped the satellite's surface, confirming that it consisted of an underlying hexagonal/pentagonal geometric pattern. Hexagons occupied the poles themselves, surrounded by a band of hexagons. The triangular openings between the hexagons were filled with pentagons, and the remaining equatorial band was sinusoidal and filled with hexagons. Here and there on the Iapetus surface, the surface of several large sections appeared to have collapsed, as if the underlying structure had given way.
In heated college dorm discussions at Stanford, Ginger had insisted on applying Occam's razor to explain what everyone could see. Applied here, that meant – for better or worse – intelligent design. In the simplest possible terms, someone or something had built the damn thing! Ginger smiled as she recalled those discussions, and gazed out the port at a close-up of Jupiter's swirling atmosphere that was like nothing she had ever seen, completely filling the sky in all directions, looming massively with an ominous foreboding.
Ginger gracefully turned her lithe body away from the port as a soft chime signaled the call to assemble in the Core for the final perigee approach. She joined the rest of the crew in the now somewhat crowded space. Saeed arrived with Chen in tow, having taken for himself the responsibility for the unconscious man's safety.
Ginger strapped herself into the seat before the Astrogation Console, her mind still filled with reminiscences of her bygone college years as her fingers roamed the console controls. The next thing she knew, her holodisplay filled with the atmospheric turmoil flashing by at over 200 kilometers a second a few thousand kilometers beneath them. Although Ginger could easily interpret what her eyes beheld in the display, she was not so sure of some of the others could, especially Michele, Elke, and the Doc, and, she reminded herself with a grimace, the little terrorist Saeed. She worked the controls for a few moments, and then announced to the assembled crew in her clear contralto voice with its slight Australian lilt, "Please turn your attention to the large holodisplay. The computer has taken the perspective of a distant observer looking at our perigee passage across Jupiter's face. The image you see is a construct, but the cloud surface of Jupiter is real time for where we actually are, and extrapolated to the rest of the visible surface. Our image, of course, is also a construct."
The image was a dot against the swirling cloud surface of Jupiter. Ginger moved the display closer until Cassini II took shape. Then she rotated the view to a polar perspective, and superimposed a track line indicating their parabolic orbit. "Now you can see where we are and where we are going," she said. "Jupiter has a circumference of about seventy-one-and-a-half thousand kilometers, so at our present speed, it will take us about three hours to cover half that. That's how long we need to stay in here."
#
Saeed was awestruck by the wonders he saw. In his wildest imaginings, he never envisioned that he would be part of something like this. He bowed his head silently and reached out to Allah, groveling before the Almighty, prostrating his mental self to Allah in thankfulness for this gift. Let those fight in the way of Allah who sell the life of this world for the other… came unbidden into his mind, and again he knew the peace and tranquility brought about by his certainty of purpose.
I await your command, he mouthed silently in Arabic. He did not notice the holocam focused on his face.
