Chapter Twelve: Ground Underfoot

Jonathan sat stock still, hardely breathing in the pilots chair. It had been about five minutes since the three Idealists had closed their eyes. It seemed as if they were not breathing, they were in such deep concentration. Jonathan knew that he shouldn't wake them, but it was agains all natural inclination he had to sit there and watch them put themselves in comas. It seemed dangerous. He was tempted to check them for a pulse.
But, he payed heed to Captain Fortworth's warnings. It seemed odd that the man should so suddenly seem to change opinions about Jonathan. It didn't seem in Captain Fortworth's nature to be so cold towards him. Yet, the fact remained, there seemed to be a definite amount of calousness directed towards Jonathan.
The ship was deathly quite. It very unnerving. When he heard a large crash from the rear of the ship, Jonathan jumped.
Helen hadn't described any machinery that was supposed to make that kind of noise. Jonathan knew that he'd have to check out the situation. Stepping lightly through the cockpit, he exited to the forward loung and began searching for the source of the offending noise.
He heard voices coming from the cargo hold. That didn't make any sense to him, there should only have been four people on board. He crouched down by the hatch and leaned over it, ready to lock it, if need be. Before anything else happened though, the hatch came swinging upwards and hit him in the face, knocking him backwards.
A woman in dark, ragged clothes slithered out of the hole in the floor and pulled a weapon out of a holster and leveled it at Jonathan. A man soon pulled himself up from the cargo hold.
"Check the cabins and the cockpit," the woman whispered. Jonathan was having trouble focusing, he could see the actions going on around him, but he could not focus on what they meant.
In less than a minute, the man walked back into the room and said "They're already in the trance." He had a large gun slung over one shoulder and walked with ease around the ship, like he was familiar with the surroundings. He appeared to be on the wrong wide of sixty, but was still fit. His hair was grey and his face wrinkled, but not unkind.
"Thank God," the woman said.
"How is he?" the man asked, gesturing towards Jonathan.
"I think he took a hit on the noggin when I opened the hatch. He should be fine."
"Who are you?" Jonathan groaned from the floor.
"I'm sure you've heard of us," The woman said. "Now, get up. Where is this ship headed?"
"I'm not sure," Jonathan replied as he came up to a sitting position.
"Bullshit." The man muttered. "You're, what the second in command here?"
"I'm an Initiate." Jonathan answerd. "It's my first day with the Commission."
"Not likely," the man said, leveling the brutal looking gun at Jonathan. "An initiate at your age? I spent fourty years with the commission, and not once did I meet an Initiate your age."
"Take us forward and introduce us to your crew," The woman said sarcastically. When Jonathan didn;t respond, she jabbed him with her weapon and said "Lets go."
When in the cockpit, they demanded the names of the crew. Jonathan didn't want cause any problems, so he provided the names of his crew-mates.
"Do you think you can handle the reprograming?" The man asked the woman.
"Sure," she said. "Wouldn't be the first time." Almost imediately, she began speaking in low, soothing tones to the crew members, describing to them over and over again a new destination, using their names many times.
The man led Jonathan to the aft lounge. "Who are you?" he asked bluntly
Jonathan, feeling no ties to the Idealist, saw no point in lying to the man. "My name is Jonathan Brooke. I'm from Earth."
This statement made the man raise his eyebrows, but did not warrant the same kind if reaction Jonathan had seen thus far. He continued "I was thrown off course during a faster than light trip from Earth to Sigma." It the next few minutes, Jonathan recounted his story. The man did not interupt once, just stood quietly listening.
"I hold no allegiance to these people. Although they have been very kind, they are responsible for keeping me away from my home. All I want to do is find some sort of way back to where I belong."
The man stood mute for a second, and then said very carefully and diliberatly "This is the ship that picked you up on your cast away planet?"
"Yes" jonathan replied.
"And you expect more people from Earth to be at your planetsome time soon?"
"Yes"
"And even if they don't show up, you could still provide the telemetry that would give us Earth co-ordinates?"
"Yes. Why?"
"I expect it will all become clear to you very soon." The man said.
"That's one of the only things that I have been able to ascertain since my arriving in this culture. Who are you?" Jonathan asked.
"Me? Oh, I'm just an old captain that's tired of the same problems keeping the colonies from having what they should."
"Whats that?" Jonathan asked.
"Well, first and foremost, access to their homeland. Earth. The location of that planet has been one of the closest gaurded secrets of the Elders of the Jones family for the last millenium."
"Why would they keep the location of Earth secret?"
"Nobody really knows." The man replied. "You seem the reasonable sort. You're sure you're not an idealist?"
"Quite frankly mister," jonathan replied, "I can't understand the shit."
"I like you, son. The name's Grinder. James Grinder." The man offered a hand.
"Hey - wait a minute. The kid up in the front, andy. he told me a story about a Captain Grinder..." Jonathan said as he took the hand.
"Yeah," Grinder sighed. "That'd be me. The famous exploit of the Bush-Gunderson conflict, right?"
"That'd be the one."
"I'm petty famous for that one. A decorated hero. And all because some innocent colonist were trying to protect themselves from an illegal invasion in the guise of humanitarian aide. It was my last mission with the Commission. I stopped serving them more'n ten years ago. They system just got to convoluted - too corrupted."
"Your society looked so clean and upstanding." jonathan observed.
"You'd think it's a regualr utopia is you were just visiting. All the trouble is hidden by slight of hand and government secrets. I'm willing to bet most of the poeple back in Port Orpheus don't even know thay are at war. Oh, and I'm not an idealist anymore, son."
"At war? With whom?"
Grinder chuckled. "Why, with me, of course!"

Chapter Eleven: --continued--

Jonathan climbed into the passenger side of the truck. The supplies were loaded carefully on the back. "What are we doing, exactly?" He asked Andy.
"Routine observation mission. There is a system that looks like it has habitable planets that nobody's been too before. Before a family claims colonisation rights, we're going to drop in and check things out. Thats what the microsatellites are for - essentailly spying on other worlds to see what they're like."
"So we're just going to fly over to another system and drop some sattellites in orbit?" Jonathan asked.
"That pretty much it. Not bery glorious, sure, but it's still exciting seeing a whole new world. Maybe there will be life - I have yet to find a system with life in it. Y'know, interplanetary law dictates that you can name species if you discover and document them."
"Really?"
"Yeah... maybe I can name something. That'd be pretty fun."
"Y'know, kid, once you find something the haredst part is finding a name for it." Jonathan thought about Norman, who once again seemed to be nowehere around. He was used to it, however. Norman had dissapeared for long times and still managed to find his way more than once.
"I guess yiu're right." Andy said, leaning over the steering wheel. The Spaceport wasn't far from the Spacing Commission building and it was a relatively short drive.
The truck's storage space slid off the bed and into the cargo hold of the ship with ease. Andy parcked it in a designated spot and climbed out. He and Jonathan walked over to the ship where Captain Fortworth and Helen were waiting.
As soon as the two men were seated in the cockpit, Captain Fortworth siad "SC-109 to Port Orpheus control, requestion permission to launch and break orbit for system communication grounds."
A woman's voice came of the speakers of the ship a few seconds later. "SC-109, this is Port Orpheus control, you're launch is pre-approved and your window will be open in three minutes. Watch for an incoming passenger liner on the 34th parrallel. Good luck."
"Thank you, control," The Captain replied.
Jonathan was surprised at how smoothly the ship took off. He no longer mistook it for a shuttle - he had originally assumed it was such an earthly Vehicle because of the engined it used in atmosphere. In actuallity, it was a full-space faring vessel. Shuttle engines had been developed sometime before or during the Destruction, so it made sense that these people would have the technology.
The ship glided up to space smoothly and set off for the outer system.

As the engines pushed the ship past the outer planets, Jonathan found himself sitting in the cockpit with Helen. She was the second in command on the vessel and held a rank of Liuetenant. She was showing Jonathan the basic controls of the ship.
"This is another emergency action panel," she explained. "If, for example, there were a hull breech in the cickpit here, you could shunt the control of the ship to other panels through out the ship from this one. I always thought it pretty useless, since there are so many redundant safety features, but there you are."
"I suppose it makes sense to be extra safe, though. You never know what might happen out in space." Jonathan replied.
"You know, that's very true. But I've still never heard of anybody once having to use this panel or one similar to it on any ship." Helen explained.
The two sat in silence for a moment, staring as an asteroid drifted past their feild of view.
"Helen?" Jonathan asked.
"Yes?"
"If you travle through space with your minds, why are we still drifting around this system? We're not mind-traveling now, are we?"
"You're right, we're not," Helen explained. "And there' s a good reason. Changing the perceptions of the entier universe isn't exactly an easy task. It takes a lot of pressure and concentration to break through to the Mind and have it change things for you. What space ships tend to do is lumber back and forth from the edges of systems."
"I was told that you could go from orbit to orbit." Jonathan said.
"Oh, you can." Helen said. "The problem with that is physics. If you drop into orbit from a standstill or from another orbit, you're dealing with a lot of physics all at once. You're stationary in dead space, and then you exist that close to a gravity well, you start falling fast, and you essentially lose control. Nasty accidents happen that way. Also, if you're in orbit and you drop into the orbit of another world and, say, have your tradjectory reversed, it creates terrible strain on ships, damaging and sometimes destroying them."
Jonathan thought about it for a moment. "So you get around this by changing the universe in deep space?"
Helen noded, and siad "Thats the basic idea. There's a lot less that can go wrong out on the edge of a system. Gives planetary authorities a bit of warning and time to organise th orbits of various vessels, as well."
Just then, Andy and Captain Fortworth joined them in the cockpit.
"Learn about the ship?" Captain Fortworth asked Jonathan.
"The important parts." Jonathan said.
"Good. You're going to be in control of the the vessel's drives and whatnot whi;e we join the Mind and transport the ship to the new system. Normally, this is Andy's job, but we should be able to get there quicker with his help in the mental end of things. It's dangerous to run a ship withut a consciencous crew-member," Captain fortworth thought back to when he transported Jonathan to Port Orpheus. That had been a dangerous trip, indeed.
Jonathan noted that Captain Fortworth was still being rather breif with him. He didn't understand why. The captian seemed to be avoiding him as much as possible.
"Jonathan, this is very important - be sure not to wake us up. It will look almost as if we are in a coma. It is imparative that you let us wake up naturally. Do not force us awake. It is not a wise plan."
"Yes, sir." Jonathan replied.
"Alright then," Captain Fortworth said, making a motion towards the pilot's seat with his hand, indicating that Jonathan should take it. "It make take a number of hours for the perceptions to change. Try not to say anything either. It might influence out concentration."

Word Count: 19,283
Day Left:19
Sanity: Losing Faith
Cafinated Beverages: At least five

Chapter Eleven: The Assignment

Jonathan was asleep when a knock was heard on his door. It took a minute for him to stir and go and open the door. He looked bleary eyed into the face of Captain Fortowrth. Hius internal clock was not adjusted to teh local time.
"We've been given an assignment and must ship out immediately." the Captain said simply. Behind him were two people Jonathan did not recognise. They were both wearing the uniforms that Jonathan recognised as those belonging to the Spacing Commission. "This is Andy and Helen," Captain Fortworth introduced them. "They are the other crewmen on our ship. They've both been breifed on your situation."
There was a hard edge in Captain Fortworth's voice that Jonathan had not heard before. He wondered if there was more to this man than he suspected.
Andy stepped forward. "I have to go down to the second floor to pick up some supplies for the mission. I could use some help loading the truck, could you give me a hand?"
Jonathan shrugged, "Sure."
"You'll need to get your uniform while you are in supplies, Jonathan." The Captain reminded. "Helen and I will go prep the ship for our journey. We'll meet you there."
"Sure thing," Andy said. He was a young man, and, if Jonathan had learned anything about the Spacing commission's uniforms, he was an Initiate. He wore his feild jacket, stripped of many of the materials usualy found in the many pockets open over his shirt. He seemed very eager to please and obviouslly had a passion for his job.
"So, you're really from earth, eh?" He asked Jonathan as they walked down the stairs to the second floor.
"I am." Jonathan replied. He didn't really want to talk about it at the time, but Andy was a likeable enough person. "Listen kid, I'm sort of homesick. I was supposed to go back to Earth a few days from now. I don't really want to talk about it."
"No problem," Andy replied. "What do you know about the Spacing Commission?"
"I read upon it last night." Jonathan replied.
"So you know all the boring technical details and the general history?" Andy asked.
Jonathan chuckled at the description. "I guess you could put it that way."
"Oh man, you have yet to hear all the sxciting parts. I can tell you just about anythign you want to know about the Spacing Commission."
At this point, Jonathan reached the quartermaster desk and asked for a uniform. he was provided with the light brown pants, blue dress shirt and feild jacket of the Spacing Commission. The Jacket was also a light brown with patches of dark brown leather (at least, Jonathan thought it looked like leather). It had various tools that a Spacing Commission officer might need in the feild in all of it's many custom pockets. He was also issued a holstered gun and a badge that had been made for him. He stowed the materials in a pack and followed Andy to the mission equpiment section of the floor.
It was like a huge factory with all sorts of strange machines ready to be turned on. Andy had a worn, folded piece of paper in his, using it as an inventory list.
"We're going to need some micro-satteltites." he said. "And, some general supplies, as well as a new dynamo."
Jonathan didn't really know what any of what he was loading was, but he packed it into a storage room at the back of the warehouse. The room wasn't actually so much a room, but a container that would be lowered onto a truck that could then be driven to the Spaceport.
It didn't take long to load everything. During the entire operation, Andy told Jonathan about the Spacing Commission.
"The Spacing Commission is probably one of the mose interested aspects of the colonial society. Each family has a system to themselves, and some have even pleanted minor colonies in other systems. The Spacing Commission regulates the areas between these planets are the realm of the Spacing Commission."
"I know all this, kid." Jonathan said as he lugged a crate over to a cart.
"Well, okay, but I just wanted to make sure."
"Tell me some of the intersting stories you were describing earlier."
"Okay - I like this one. It went like this, there was a Captain named Grinder who was in charge of one of the police vessles back during the Bush-Gunderson conflict... Do you know about the Bush-Gunderson Conflict?"
"Can't say I do."
"Well, that's okay, it was one of the colonial wars. It doesn't really matter to the story why they were fighting. Anyway, this Captain, Grinder, he was in charge of one of the big policing vessles. Really are they are is like a battleship, right? And, uh, well, there was this incident during the war, where, well, the Spacing Commission watches over wars real tight, right? It's so they can make sure that the wrong people don't get killed. Anyway, there was this incident where Grinder was escorting a convoy of mechant ships through disputed terrirory. The war was over a minor colony war- both families wanted to control it. Anyway, the convoy, it was attacked by some space fighters. Grinder, of course, fought back in an attempt to make sure that the convoy got though - it was carrying humanitarian aide, by the way. Well, as soon as one of the enemy fighters was destroyed, the other fled. Grinder thought he had won an easy victory, but they, out of no-where, six big, I mean, huge Bush family cruisers come out, and attack the convoy. They were trying to control the surface of the planet, adn the humanitarian aid would disrupt that. Anyway, Grinder's up agains these six battleships, hugely outgunned and outnumbered. It seemed like a hopeless fight. He ordered the convoey to break, try and make it to the planet if they could, but to preserve themselves first and formost.
"The Police vessle was a fast one, but it lacked armor like the big, slow battleships had. So, Grinder used his advantages as best he could. One of the ships chased him around a moon, and as he crested the opposite horizen, another of them opened fire, accidently striking their own vessle. Although it wasn't destroyed, it was out of the fight. Grinder managed to take the ship that had missed him and hit it's engines, leaving it cold in space. He forced another one down on to the surface of the moon by attacking it from above. through various tactics, he managed to outsmart and out manouever all the enemy ships." Andy was entierly awestruck by the account of the story. He seemed to worship Captain Grinder as a hero.
"How old are you, kid?" Jonathan asked.
"Oh, uh, I'm eigteen. I streemed my secondary education towards Spacing and fast-tracked the training program for the Spacing Commission."
"Right." Jonathan said. He didn't want to shatter Andy's view of the hero, but it sounded like captain Grinder was just lucky. Jonathan couldn't help but like the kid, he was enthusiastic, if not the best story teller. And he loved his job, that was something Jonathan could respect.
They took the stairs down to the first floor and went to the reception desk. The same girl was sitting there, he attention focused on the screen. apparently, she had take Captain Fortworth's advice.
"Hi!" Andy said as he walked up to the counter.
"Hey Andy," the girl said. "Checking out?"
"Yup. I'm not sure how long we're going to be gone for," he said, awkwardly.
"Alright. I guess, uh, I'll see you when you get back?" The girl asked.
"I suppose."
"You're checking out, too, Mr. Brooke?" The girl asked Jonathan.
"Yes, thanks, I guess I am."
"Alright. Have a safe trip," she said as they started away. She blushed when Andy winked at her.

Chapter Ten: The Spacing Commission

The strange short building was an odd mix of a kind of hotel and office building. It gave the officers of the spacing commission a place to stay when they were on Port Orpheus, and it also served to dispatch the officers.
Captain Fortworth walked up to the front desk where a very bored looking girl was sitting, swiveling back and forth in her chair. When she noticed Captain Fortworth and Jonathan, she immediatly sat upright, and her face began to glow. She couldn't have been much older than seventeen.
Jonathan stood awkwardly to the side of and just behind Captain Fortworth. He didn't know what to do.
"You're the new secretary?" Captain Fortworth asked, somewhat gruffly.
The girl seemed somewhat taken aback. She shrunk down in her chair and mumbled "yes." She must have felt guilty about being caught bored at her desk.
"How long have you worked here?" Captain Fortworth demanded, out of character.
The girl look up at him and mumbled "a week."
Captain Fortworth broke his hard look and cracked a smile at this point. "Listen, young lady, some officers here take their job very seriously," With this, he leaned on tehe desk and began to whisper. "Too seriously, if you ask me. They don't let anybody have any fun. You're not going to get fired if you load a book on that computer. Furthermore, nobody on this side of the desk can see what you're doing. It makes you look busy, and keeps you from getting bored." He winked, and then stood up straight again. "Captain Fortworth and Initiate Jonathan Brooke reporting for houseing." he said.
"Yes sir," the girl consulted the terminal infront of her. She tapped on the keyboard for a while, and a scoul passed over her face. "The records don't have an initiate Brooke on file, sir."
"Not a problem, just log him in under 'guest' for now."
"Can I do that?"
"If you take any flack for it, just direct your superior to me, alright?"
Captain Fortworth's easy going manner had easily won over the young girl, and she knew that she could trust him. "If you say so."
"He'll be logged as an initiate as soon as I book him." Captain Fortworth explianed to the girl. "He was just appointed by the Elders without training."
"Oh, really?" The girl said, excited. "Thats so strange! Where did he come from?" The girl stopped, seemed to notice her own fault in ettiquite, then, blushing again, said "Sorry."
Jonathan was going to say something, but Captain fortworth beat him too it.
"It doesn't matter - just log us in please."
The girl assigned them room numbers, side by side, and they proceeded upstairs. They did not go to the second floor, but instead proceeded directly to the third, where their rooms were.
"Now, Jonathan, I need sleep. It's been a very long time. You'll find a terminal in your room where you can access a database that should give you answers to any questions you may have." With that, Captain Fortworth walked into his room and closed the door.
Jonathan was left alone in the hall of the strange building. He opened the door to his room and peeked inside. It looked very much like a hotel room. There was a bedroom, a small living area with the terminal Captain Fortworth had noted, and a bathroom.
Jonathan immediately took a shower, then wandered over to the terminal.
He could not accept that he had to stay with these people. It made no sense, why should they hold him here? Why couldn't he go home?
The Elders had seemed to be holding something back from him. What it was he could not say, but he did not trust them. There seemed to be nothing wrong with the information he did give to him, he had no doubt that it was thruthful, there was just something missing from the equasion. Why would they have never gone back to Earth? It didn't make sense. There were a number of things that just were not adding up for Jonathan.
There was essentially no reason taht Jonathan could see that he had to stay here. He had dismissed attempting to steal a spacecraft as soon as he learned how they worked - accessing the Mind and changing the perceptions of the universe seemed a little beyond him.
The best Jonathan could think to do was learn as much about his current position and see how he could best turn it towards his benefit.
The terminal was not unlike machined he had used in the past. Slightly more advanced than anything he had seen, but nothing impossible to use.
He knew he was an Initiate in the Spacing Commission, but he did not know exactly what that meant. His first task was to find out exactly what it did mean.
After playing around with the controls, Jonathan began to learn the system. It didn't take long to find information on the Spacing Commission. It was an orginisation that did not answer to any one of the seventeen colonial families, but rather to each of them equally. They were quasi-military in structure, and carried weapons, but were not technically a military force. Nor were they exactly a police force either, although they did police the space-ways. Their mandate included protecting the colonies from alien races, but, to date Jonathan could not find any records of battles. Part of his adventurous side foudn this slightly dissapointing. The main function of the Spacing Commision was to make sure none one broke the laws of space and that no one familiy tried to take control of Space itself - giving them a huge advantage financially and tactically in space. Jonathan found hints that the colonies had fought each other in the past.
There were various other duties of the Spacing Commision, including shipping of dangerous materials that many civilian corperations would not touch.
The final mandate that Jonathan managed to note was the one that was responsible for his current predicament - The Spacing Commission monitored pre-space flight races. If they were threatening the colonies, the Spacing Commission had a standing order to 'deal with them accordingly'. This is no doubt why Captain Fortworth was monitoring Norton and why he had found Jonathan there.
As for the part about being an initiate, Jonathan quickly learned that an Initiate was merely the lowest rank of the Spacing Commision; other than trainee. Jonathan did know why or how he qualified for his position, but from his memory of Captain Fortworth's ship, he figured it to be a vessle meant to police space and monitor other planets.
Although the job wasn't unappealing, Jonathan did not want to stay on a planet away from his home and be stuck in a foreign civilisation for the rest of his life.
He could not, however, see a way out of his current predicament. He decided that the best option would be to ride it out for the time being and hope that some of the mysteries rising up around him would clear themselves and present an opportunity.
Jonathan leadned back and put his hands behind his head. he stared at the screen which had a read out and description of one of the types of ships the Spacing Commission employed. Norman glided into view on his desk, with some sort of local fruit in his mouth.
"There you are." Jonathan said. "Where have you been?"
As if to answer the question, Norman began eating the fruit.
"Of course, you're always hungry. How do you suppose we are supposed to get off this world, Norman?" Jonathan asked. Norman just continued to eat his fruit.

Chapter Nine: Cultural Integration

"So, you're telling me you travel space with your minds?" Jonathan asked.
"Not just that."
"Quite a bit more."
"Our society rather depends on the fact that the social intereactions are the only part of it that is real."
"Alright - if you know that the world doesn't exist, so absolutely, why do you exist in the world at all?" Jonathan was not a philosopher, but he had noted a few fundamentals that were bothering him. This was the big one.
"Tell us Jonathan, if we removed ourself from the realm of perceptions, what would we have left?" The elders asked in return.
"I don't know..." Jonathan said non-commitally, figuring there was some sort of right answer.
"The simple truth is, there are members of our society that Introspect; that is, go entierly into themselves and ignor perceptions. What they are left with is their thoughts, which are limited by the perceptions that they have already had. They exist in a realm of perfect memory, but accuire no new memories. Many people that go into that state do not stay long. In fact, a large number of people try, despite best advice not to. Everyone who tries goes with the hope of deriving some sort of absolute truth. they go with the hopes of making a development like Warren Jones'."
"But, nobody has ever made a development like Warren Jones."
"Jonathan - we must give you a peice of bad news before you can leave us."
"You will undoubtledly find it unfair, but you must understand that we have our reason for this."
"Jonathan, we are afraid that you cannot leave out society and return to your own."
"What?" Jonathan said, taken aback. "Why not?"
"We cannot tell you, not yet at any rate."
"There is too much at stake right now..."
"Hush, Farhad."
"Perhaps you will understand in time. For now, I believe that you will find that Captain Fortworth's ship is short one crew-man."
"We have consulted with the Spacing Commision," this statement seemed somewhat odd to Jonathan because the elders had not talked to anyone but him since his arrival, but he was quickly learning that nothing on the world of Port Orpheus was what he would consider normal. "They have accepted that you need to be integrated into our society, and they have assigned Captain Fortworth to be your advisor."
"Begging your pardon, elders" Captian Fortworth interjected, "but would this job not be better suited for a social worker?"
"I'm afriad that you are already a familiar face to the man, Ignus," Lucas said with a fatherly smile. "Normally, we might assign a social worker to a case like this one, but as is, with the... conflict, they are all busy."
"Conflict, sir?" Captain Fortworth asked,
"It's nothing, for now, Captain Fortwoth. Do not worry about it."
"Furthermore," Lucas continued "I'm afriad all the social workers do not have the same sort of skills you do. This man does not need the help of a social worker -- he need the help of a friend. And right now, Captain Fortworth, you are the closest thing to a friends the man has on this world."
"Please, we have many matters to discuss today. We deemed this visit important over all else, but with current situations, we have to carry on with other business."
"Captain Fortworth, if you would kindly take initiate Brooke to the local offices of the Spacing Commision..."
With that, the two men were dismissed from the audience hall of the elders. The gaurds stayed behind this time.
"Captain - " Jonatha began.
Captain Fortworth quickly cut him off. "Please, don't call me that. I never liked the title. Call me Ignus."
"Ignus," Jonathan tried, "I understand that you probably don't want to look after me. I am a mature adult. I can probably find my own way around this city."
"Jonathan, quite frankly, I don't know you. Right now, you're just like a new recruit to my ship, except that you lack a certain skill set that is usually equated with an initiate. I have no doubt that you will be an asset on my vessel once you learn what your job is, but until you become more familiar with this place you are living, I don't think it very intellegent to set you out on your own.
"Quite simply, I can tell by your actions and some of the things that you said to the elders that you are unfamiliar with our society. It would not be intellegent, or fair, to cut you loose in this city. There is one simple reason why." Captain Fortworth talked as he and Jonathan walked side by side out of the building by the space port. their eyes met a city unlike any other in the Galaxy. The Orpheus family was arguably the most powerful and certainly the richest. The city was an opulent utiopia. There was no mistaking it as a city; vihicles hummed over roads and pedestrians when about their myriad and sundry tasks without seeming to notice one another, but the architecture was an incredible mixture of styles that Jonathan, for one, could not recognise. There were a considerable amount of trees and other vegetaion to be found by the roads of the city. It was all lit by the strange double red suns up in the sky. The view was unlike anything jonathan had ever seen. There was no doubt in Jonathan's mind that the utalitarian structures of earth lacked the beauty of the buildings here; if not the functionality.
Jonathan was so breathtaken by the view of strange buildings that never seemed to top about four stories and were all ornately decorated with some sort of white stone that it took him a moment to reply to Captain Fortworth. "Why's that?" he finally asked.
"The plain answer, Jonathan, is that the city does not exist." The answer Captain Fortworth gave made all of the beauty of teh city very superflous, but Jonathan could still not help but gape.
On earth, after the destruction, buildings had been created out of necessitity, and they looked it. Architecture was no longer an art. It was an art that died along with most of the earth. Structures were generally uniform in appearance and served some sort of task. Thats what they were for, use. Nothing else.
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," Jonathan muttered as he walked along the streets.
"Thats a tired old statment." Captain Fortworth said. "Interesting Old Earth concept, though. Technically, everything is in the mind of the beholder... and only because it was planted there by the Mind."
"I know this may seem an amature question," Jonathan started.
"Don't worry about amature questions, Jonathan." Captain Forworth replied. "You'll never understand us if you don't ask us."
"Alright then, what is The Mind?"
Captain Fortworth did not slow his pace any, but he immediately when into a reflective state. He was about a minute before he replied. Jonathan knew it would be useless to try and coax an answer out of him faster. There was something about the ease of Captain Fortworth's manner that made him easy to get along with - and easy to let him do things his own way. "What is the mind?" he repeated. "That's a question pondered much by the Introspectives, and the intellegencia at large." Captain Fortworth pondered for a second more, carefully selecting his words carefully. "You really don't ask the easy questions first, do you? Well, the Mind, it seems, is the being that controls out perceptions of the world. It, essentially, tells all of our minds, and, presumably, all of the minds of all the universe what they are seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and feeling. Any other senses that might exist among other beings would be controlled by The Mind."
With the mention of 'other beings', Jonathan thought of Norman. He looked over his shoulder, and around in general. he did not see the creature, but because of the camoflauge nature of his skin, that didn't mean anything. He had been so engrossed in the lectures of the Elders that he had not thought of his companion. Jonathan hoped, however, that the creature was not harmed in any way.
"The Mind controlls our perceptions, but not our actions. It does not determine fate. That is why we believe that the mind probably isn't God, merely just a higher order of existence. Probably the most interesting feature of The Mind is that it can be influenced. Because there is no space and all of our minds and the Mind Co-exists in the same spacelessnes, we can interact with it directly. All we need is our thoughts. We can, with concentration, manipulate the Mind to change the perceptions of every being in the Universe. That is to say, we can push every mind in the universe to suddenly preceive that our spaceship is no longer in Port Orpheus, but rather in Orbit around Ranch, another one of the seventeen colonies. Because everybody, including the people within the ship precieve that they they are in orbit around Ranch (or, at least, would precieve it if they could, somebody on another world could not see that far in actuality), it becomes true. That is where the Spaceship is."
"That has to be one of the most interesting ideas for space travel I've ever heard." Jonathan said. "There were many physical theories on Earth, none of which seemed to work -- except of course, one. But it didn't even work properly."
"Why not?" Captain Fortworth asked.
"That planet you found me on? I call it Norton, by the way," Jonathan added.
"A worthy name for the planet. We were waiting for the locals to name it." Captain Fortworth replied.
"Well, Norton wasn't my intended destination. I was supposed to go to Sigma. I wasn't supposed to end up at Norton. Strange that I should end up at a planet you were studying."
"Indeed, it was. It took a lot of coaxing to get the Mind to allow the perception of our ship being there. It was no small task to get there, let me tell you."
The two men fell into silence as they continued walking on towards the local offices of the Spacing Commision. Captain Fortworth seemed to know the way rather well, because on more than one occasion, he made a turn without looking up. Jonathan still craned his neck, unaware of his odd behaviour, in awe of the buildings and city at large. There was one tower that stretched far above the city. It was unlike anything Jonathan had ever seen before.
After a few more minutes of walking, them came to a building that did not match the arcitecture of all the others around it. It was built with a grey stone that gave off an eerie glint in the red suns. It was slightly squater than the other buildings and had a very offical look about it.
"The Port Orpheus Spacing Commision Offices." Catpain Fortworth announced. "Welcome to your new home, Jonathan."

Chapter Eight: The Idealist Revolution

"That," Lucas said "Was an interesting tale."
Captain Forworth was sitting with his mouth slightly agape. He was part a para-military group, the Spacing Commision, who didn't lend themselves specifically to any of the seventeen families, but rather worked with each of them evenly, policing space. He had seen a few battles with pirates, but had never even imagines fighting to the scale that Jonathan Brooke has just described.
The Elders of the Orpheus familiy sat and pondered. Jonathan sat silent, knowing that at that time I would be fairly useless to try and press into their silent thought. Jonathan could not seem to shake the feeling that there was some sort of communication going on between the elders, however. They were silent, but they were silent together. It was perhaps one of the oddest sensations he had ever felt in his life.
before too long, the elders raised their heads as one. There was no doubt that they seemed to reach a conlusion at togher.
"Your tale varies from ours."
"There is one fundamnetal difference, in fact."
"We believed that we were leaving a dead world behind us, when we left. It was still going through the death throws at the time, but we knew that there was no clear victor to be had in World War Three."
"We never expected the Apocalptists, though."
"They were a complete surprise."
"The religious radical terrorists seem to have accelerated the process."
"But we thought that the world of Earth was lost forever."
"You see, although there are seventeen colonies, there were supposed to be eighteen."
The elders were all contributing to the conversation. What Jonathan heard was a continuous dialouge coming from six different people. It was as if there were working with one mind.

Sometime before the beginning of the Destruction, the Elders of the Orpheus family said, a radical development was made in the feild of Metaphysics. It is a long standing truth that as soon as a metaphysical question can be proven, in becomes science. Take, for example, the question of how the plants move. Logic could explain the movement of the Planets. Logic, in fact, dictated that they orbited around earth along with the sun and the moon. It seemed logical, and indeed it appeared to be true when studied by the pricipal of occum's razor -- that is, the most obvious explination is usually the correct one. For the ancient peoples of Earth, the logical answer to the movement of stars, planets, the sun and the moon was that they orbited the Earth. With the development of science, the realm of the movement of stars moved away from philosophy, however. It was proven, with science, that the universe does not revolve around earth. Thus, the Metaphysical became the physical.
The breakthrought that was made followed this example. It has been shown, with logic, that it appears that we all exist in the physical world. The breakthrough was when a philosopher by the name of Warren Jones realised that an old philosophical idea was in fact not only logically possible, but the scientific truth. As seen in the above example, when the metaphysical is proven true, it becomes the physical. Only, those words don't quite work.
The philosphical proposition found to be true was one that seeked to answer the metaphysical question of 'How the world is'. It is a feild of thought known, in general, as Idealism. It states that the physical world is, in fact, just a construct of the Mind, a set of perceptions.
The physical world that you are so used to Does not Exist. Only your mind and it's perceptions do.
The Mind is a constructer - maybe akin to God, maybe not - who co-ordinates all the perceptions of all the living beings in the universe.
Warren Jones noticed that the old idealist theories were perhaps inaccurate, but not entirely wrong. And furthermore, he realised that any being could, with the right training, access the Mind. Accessing the Mind would allow that being to change it's own perceptions.
Warren Jones began to gather followers of his idealist philosophy (if we can be allowed to call it that) and before too long, had the support of a seventeen large or powerful families on Earth. They funded him, and he in return promised to set them up with a place in the universe that they could call their own. A colony, a paradise outside of the solar system.
he was the most powerful of the early idealists. He could see the universe for what it really was better than anybody else could. You'll learn the ways of the idealist as you move around our cities.
At the time, he was the only man who could conceive of how to change his perception enough that he could take a ship and move it through space.
That last idea is misleading, Warren Jones never actually moved a ship through space, since nothing really moves and there is no space. But again, we can see the confusion on your face, perhaps you will better understand these matters in time, Jonathan.
He was preparing to take the families out into the universe, and show them the true ways of the World and the Mind. One thing, however, got in his way.
The War.
It was difficult to organise it, but Warren Jones managed to get an armada of his ships to travel to other worlds. He left... a disciple behind on Earth to contact him when the war was over, so the eighteen colonies could exist togther.
The disciple never answered to Warren Jones again. We knew that the disciple would never intentionally betray his... him. It was a simple matter to put togethert the fact that somehow, Earth had been destroyed. There was no other explination for why, but the people of old agreed that the graveyard roots of humanity would be a hallowed place, never to be visited again. Sacred ground never to be seen by human eyes. The philosophical reasoning behind this is less important to the overall picture.
The simple truth is, our society never returned to Earth, becasue we thought it was gone forever.
Up until now, we had thought that Earth was forever gone, and up until now, we did not know what had happened there.

Word Count: 13,737 (making this officially the longest counted work I've ever written)*
Days Left: 23
Sanity: Well... It's still here.
Cafinated Beverages: 2
* - I wrote a novel once long ago, but it was in pen, and I don't know how many words it was.

Chapter Seven: --continued... again--

The war in the colonies was something that the survivors on Earth could not know about.
The weapon on the moon had absolutely obliterated all semblence of communication on Earth. There was no way that one community could get in contact with another without sending a runner. In this respect, what followed was like the dark ages, when the Roman Empire fell.
The Desruction's final wrath was not unleashed on humanity yet, however. The cities were empty husks, everybody in them dead. Pests thrived on an abundance of food. Survivors were suseptible to plauge from these creatures of Death.
Although they are only rumors and there seems to be no evidence to support these claims, it is said that some of the last cities hit with the weapon were hit with a diminished blast and that, althought the electronics were destroyed, it left humans alive. but only just. the brains were damaged somehow and they no longer felt pain, they lurched around randomly, without purpose. Some were terribly injured, others burnt, and they walked, like the living dead.
In rural communities, people were more fortunate than in the cities. Entire farming communities escaped with their lives. The unfortunate part was, as much as the cities of Earth depended on them, so they depended on the cities. Without new tools or gasoline to power the tool, the farms fell into disrepair and many more people in small towns died of starvation as the farmers started to grow only enough food for themselves.
More still people began to die of the plauges coming out of the cities.
The situation seemed very hopeless for many people. There was one place where something akin to a miracle took place, however. After the cities of earth were destroyed, a platoon of USNA forces in the Middle East ran across a platoon of EAC forces. Although initially the weary soldiers lifter their arms, the commanding officer of the EAC put his hands up and walked over to the USNA's position. He was a rational man by the name Xiang Chui. He was not in the war by choice; fundamnetally he was against the fighting. Some even called him a pacifist, but I personaly doubt that. How would a pacifist rise in ranks throught the military? The USNA's leader, Jeanette McCullah, confered with Chui, and they decided it was in everybody best interests to work together. The weapon had managed to destroy all electronics on earth, and both teams had been out of contact with anybody for weeks.
Both groups were made up entierly of conscripts and honestly had no real racial issues with eachother. Or so, the story goes, at any rate. It seems rather improbable that two fueding groups could suddenly reconocile their diferences in such a microcosm, but who am I to rewrite history?
They used their military experitise to form a kind of community near the city of Bahgdad. It thrived through the years, and the Middle East eventually became the major power in the new World.
Eventually, after about 200 years, the people of Earth began to remake communication lines. Civilisation, this time, was not so dependant on the electronics ofa decadant age of years past.
The radiation inteh atmosphere continued to cause problems, but we overcame them as best we could. There was a new political order rising on Earth. Every country seemed to rise to some sort of Democratic socialism. Borders were largely non-existant because most of the surviving communities were spread far and wide. A sort of World Government arose, calling itself the United Socialist States of Earth.The Middle East proved to be the most powerful, so many poeple identify New Baghdad as the capital of the world. It was where the first new spaceport was developed. From there, we launched ships to Mars and discovered the gruesom history of the colonial war. Although we could not settle the moon ever again, it's convience as a waystation to the stars was too important to give up, so we built large spacestations in orbit around it.
The reamins of the colonies gave us considerable leaps forward in technology.
Before too long, in the historical sense of the word, of course, we once again became the masters of the entire solas system, only this time, it was under one centrialized power, and conflict on a military scale was almost non-existant. There were a few minor scuffles in the early years of the new world order, but nothing that even began to comapre with the War of the Destruction. As a society, we decided to start counting years from zero once again - for historical purposes, we assinged the letters PD for Post Desctruction.
Eventually, the peacful corroberation of the peoples of Earth led to some incredible scientific breakthroughs. The most important and recent of which, of course would have to be the one that brought me here - or, at least to where I was. The development of faster than light travel. It would allow us to build colonies away from the solar system and, ultimately, learn more about the universe at large.

Chapter Seven: --continued--

That was not the end of the war, however. Many people, indeed, most people on Earth were dead. The survivors I'll get to in a minute.
First, I have to deal with the colonies. The moon was destroyed by Franklin Greene, nobody on it survived, if they had lasted past the Apocalyptist conquest. The colonies left included considerable population on Mars, a few mining colonies (we don't know exactly how many) in the asteroid belt, Io, Ganymede, Titan and possibly one on the surface of Venus. The last one may have been abandoned by this point; it took quite a lot of energy to keep the colony cool enough to be habitable.
the colonies saw what had happened on Earth, and although it seems illogical, instead of quitely tolerating each-other as they had for all the years of the war, they began to fight. Each power, the USNA and the EAC had colonies on all of the listed worlds (except Venus, that was solely a USNA venture). Most of the colonies had few, if any, weapons. It turned into a war of makeshift weapons fought in places that were never meant for human habitation. It started when the martian colonies started to sabatoge each other. The basic first act of each side was to ground the ships of the other. Joshua Murawski, a simple loading dock operator is generaly lauded as the hero of the colonial battles. He lead the first actual battle on the surface of Mars with a cutting torch and a lead pipe. We have much better records of the colonial battles from the survivors - their electronic systems were not wiped out entierly.
It took a long time, but the USNA's forces won in a general way in space. On the moons of the outer planets, it was a war of attrition. Each side only had so many supplies. Few people actually fought that far out. They mostly just destroyed each other's ships, leaving no avenue of retreat. When the food and air started to grow short, the USNA's colonies brought out hidden ships and left the EAC behind. the retreated to Mars. The influx of population from the outer system, although only a few hundred individuals, was enough for the the USNA to gain the upper hand on mars. All of the mining operations in the asteroid belt had long since retreated back to Mars. If the colony on Venus was active at the time, they must also have gone to Mars.
The war with the EAC on Mars was a brutal one. As I mention, Joshua Murawski was a hero of the USNA, but he was no tactical genius. The people followed him because of his charisma and his fervor for victory, if nothing else.
Teh battles raged for years, and eventually, each side had retreated to one major colony each. Murawski knew that he had the upper hand, he had a slight edge with the few real weapons he did posses, and his enginers had altered one of the few remaining rovers into what was basically the only peice of artilary on mars. Although it only ever had seven rounds of amunition, this was enough to give the USNA a definte edge. Murawski also knew that he had more manpower.
In what would become the last battle on the during the war, which had seen three major contributors, the USNA, the EAC and the Apocalypists, Murawski made one final fatal error that helped to destroy human civilisation.
It was a tactical error. He knew he needed a superior force to take the EAC's colony. even with his artilary, the colony would still be well defended.
Wearing pressure suits, his makeshift army marched on the EAC's colony - or, at least, what he thought to be the EAC's last colony. Although Joshua Murawski won the battle, he incured heavy losses and returned to his own colony to find it severly damaged, nearly in ruins.
The EAC still had one small outpost active, adn they had struck from it when Murawski had attacked their main colony. Although the USNA was victorious overall on Mars, they were left with barely any resources and a damaged colony. For all intents and purposes the records showed that the survivors of the colonial battles tried to survive as best they could.
In fact, their colony, when rebuilt from scraps and left overs from the battles, was thriving. The people had become very good at engineering makeshift contraptions, they had been making weapons for years.
Unfortunetly, it teh records seem to show that about 70 years after the end of the war, when the colonists were trying to build a ship to return to Earth to see what had happened there, some sort of cataclysm occured. Everyone on mars, and thus, from all the colonies, was killed.
The last stronghold of humanity was in what used to be called the Middle East on Earth. Somehow, it seems appropriate that the birthplace of civilisation would be on of the few locations that would let it survive.