Divergence

“I know, Edward. But this is for the best. If what they say is happening on Earth is true, then the sooner you’re away from here, the better.”

Safe in the near darkness close to the floor, Edward ran a finger along the bracelet, feeling the strange slippery surface of the n-strings. He thought of Caroline’s parting words.

“Listen, Edward. I know you’re not very clever, but you’ve always done your best to be a good boy. You need to be a good boy now. You’ve heard the rumors: the Dark Plants are spreading, and they say the Watcher is calling everyone back home to Earth for their own safety, starting with the most helpless. And that means you. I really don’t know what to do. But they say that the trade ships are safe. The Fair Exchange software guarantees that nobody can be cheated. Well, I hope so. I’ve bought you passage on the Eva Rye .”

A cold look came into her eyes, thin as the misty rain that filled the dull green valleys of Garvey’s World.

“Are you okay, Caroline?”

She gave him a sudden, fierce hug. He kissed her on the cheek and she smiled at him.

“Now get on board. Quickly.”

And before Edward had had a last chance to look around the grey, rain-sodden hills, she had pushed him up the rainbow-striped staircase into the hatchway of the spaceship. That had been three weeks ago.

Since then Edward had wandered the multicolored corridors of the ship, trying to make sense of his new situation. The Eva Rye was not a happy place: there was no peace or harmony to be found anywhere on board, not socially, aurally, or visually. Especially visually. The decor in the living areas was a wildly eclectic mix; no two parts of the ship matched. Great bulky brown studded leather recliners humphed their way between delicately carved wooden dining chairs upholstered in shot silk. Rubber-coated floors, embossed with round gripping bumps, were covered with coconut foot mats; woodchip wallpaper was pasted over brushed aluminum bulkheads.

Even the material from which the ship was constructed flowed and changed from room to room. Wedges of grey concrete were driven into blond parquet that was in turn tiled with cream plastic shapes. And as for the people, you couldn’t have picked a more disparate bunch if you tried. Nobody seemed to want Michel to be the leader, least of all Michel himself. Maurice agreed with everything Armstrong said and did; he even dressed the same way. Donny hoarded his sour resentment, rationing his formerly sweet nature only for his children. Most people, but especially Saskia and Joanne, looked the other way when Edward entered the room. Only Craig seemed to take the trouble to speak to him, now that Donny had told Jack and Emily to keep away. Only Craig. Oh, and Miss Rose, but she hardly ever left her room, and when she did it was just to hurl, with a careful eye, more bad feeling into the bouillabaisse of hurt that was the Eva Rye .

And nobody would tell Edward what was going on. He wandered into rooms just as decisions had been made. He watched on viewing fields as deals were already done, and as other similarly eclectic spaceships slid away from theirs without Edward ever having seen those on board. All of this was something to do with the FE software that lurked unseen in the processing spaces of the Eva Rye . Edward was really beginning to resent it. All he wanted to do was to go home to Garvey’s World, to its monotonous greyness and to Caroline.

Now another stranger had contacted the ship. This time everyone had been summoned to speak to it. Nobody had been really happy with the trades that had been made so far. Everyone thought that Michel was making bad decisions, and people were beginning to say so out loud. Edward didn’t understand how that could be so, when surely it was the job of the FE software to make the trades, but even so, when the Stranger had hailed the ship, it had been agreed that this time everyone should be present for the negotiations. Even Edward. Craig had insisted on that point.

So now Edward sat on the hessian mat, his backside aching, his hands sore and itching, as the mysterious Stranger bargained for delta vee.

“Craig,” hissed Edward. “Craig! What is delta vee?”

“Acceleration,” whispered Craig. “The Stranger is floating in space. It wants us to take it somewhere else, and that requires fuel.”

“Why is it floating in space?” asked Edward.

Craig stared at him for a moment, and a lopsided smile slowly spread across his face.

“Do you know, Edward, I don’t think anyone has actually asked that.” He raised his voice. “Stranger!

Why are you floating in space?”

“All communications through Michel,” said Saskia reprovingly.

“It’s okay,” said Michel. “It’s a good question. Go on, Stranger, why?”

The fuzzy x in the viewing field laughed.

“I told you, I work on systems repair. Where else would I be but floating in space, waiting for systems to