Jupiter's Halo Book Two: The Fall

Chapter 20

The view, as always, was breathtaking.

Red had seen it before, but every time it was enough to leave her gazing in wonder. The behemoth of Jupiter had been visible through the passenger view screens for hours now, but the slim belt around the massive planet had only come into view in the last fifteen minutes.

They were close enough now for her to make out details, while still able to see it in all it's glory. A band, string-thin in comparison to the great planet but long enough to stretch around its circumference, disappeared from view as it followed the curve of the horizon. It was a marvel of human engineering, vision and sheer bloody-minded determination. Something so grand, so vast should not be possible and yet there it was, staring back at her through the empty darkness: Jupiter's Halo station, affectionately known as The God's Belt.

Billions of souls called it home, as did the Council of Colonies. It was the Jovian capital, a planets’ worth of inhabitants, government, and all the other things that went into making a civilization.

Red let her eyes wander over the shining metal surfaces of the outer hull as it drew closer. Another fifteen minutes and they’d be too close to see where the station ended, it’s bulk eclipsing everything else and going on as far as the eye could see.

"Beautiful isn't it."

She turned to see a man was leaning close, looking over her shoulder to appreciate the view. He looked to be in his fifties, although she knew enough to understand that could mean he was ten, twenty, even eighty years older. His chin sported a short greying beard and the hair on his head had receded to leave an expanse of gently wrinkled skin in its wake.

“It’s amazing,” she replied quietly.

The man gave a little laugh and extended his hand.

“Dilempian. Arto Dilempian,” he said by way of a greeting.

“Red Soyal.” She shook his hand, careful to keep her grip light and close to the end of his fingers instead of palm to palm.

Arto smiled warmly, like an endearing grandparent.

“Your first visit?” He asked.

Red hesitated before she answered, making sure the memories she used were for the right persona.

“No. Not really.”

“Not really?” He laughed again. “You mean you’ve sort of been to the biggest structure in history before?”

Red blushed slightly, still having to concentrate to make the reflex happen.

"I've been here before, but it was a short trip. Legal stuff. I didn't get to look around."

Red thought back to her last visit; a short stay, only marginally longer than the time it took to travel here. The memory was fresh in her mind. A part of her said that was because it had been placed there so recently, but she shut it off. The process was still unfinished, needing a delicate balance to prevent who she was and who she had become, from merging. Too much of one and she would revert wholly, undoing all the work she had gone through. Too much of the other and she risked losing herself completely. The right mix had to be maintained for the sake of the mission and her sanity.

Arto’s face creased slightly with a look of intrigue. He clearly wanted to ask more, but she could see his chivalry declaring to do so would be too rude.

“Do you know about the station?” He asked instead.

“A little,” she replied, turning her eyes back to the screen. “Things I’ve heard, stuff I learned in history at the Academy.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“So you’re Luna born? Interesting.”

Red shrugged, non-committal.

Arto didn't push the subject. Instead, he moved next to her, close enough to bring a level of intimacy to their conversation, but not so close as to be uncomfortable.

As they’d talked the cruiser had drawn closer, the huge expanse of the station now beginning to fill her view. The orange swirling mass of the planet below was pushed aside, leaving only the human-made structure.

“Well if you’ll permit me, I would be more than happy to educate you.”

In a different tone, it would have sounded like an offer of romance, but she could hear the love he held for the great station and she knew his interest was that of a keen hobbyist, explaining his passion to a layman.

“That’s very kind.”

"It is a pleasure." His eyes gleamed as he took in the view of the growing station. "I have lived half my life here. I dare say I have grown to love it more than my own home."

Red smiled, nodding to encourage him to continue. Boarding the station alone was not necessarily a risk, but a young wide-eyed woman alone might draw attention from the kind of people she'd rather not encounter. The danger was minimal; Red could handle that sort of thing with relative ease, but the need to switch personas to do so could be complicated and if there were witnesses or worse, the authorities got involved, it would quickly make her mission far more difficult. Boarding with a kindly gentleman, chatting about the history and sights of the station, would let her blend more seamlessly into the crowds.

“We’ll change course soon,” Arto started. “The nearest civilian docks are in the Amory quadrant, just over there.”

He pointed to a darker patch in the unending hull as he spoke. From this distance, the details were nothing more than a blotch, but she knew they would resolve soon enough to show a series of structures capable of landing and launching everything from a private one-man shuttle up to the largest of pleasure cruisers.

“Do you know about the quadrants?” He asked, still staring ahead.

“Not much,” she admitted.

“Ah,” he sounded delighted at the prospect of imparting his knowledge. “There are four of them. Amory’s where we’re going. The station is too big to be managed as one, you see. So it’s split. Each quadrant has its own arm of government, police, emergency services. The whole thing.”

Red let him continue without interruption. He wasn’t telling her anything a part of her didn’t know, but the other part was enraptured, fascinated by the information he recited and the ideas they sparked in her naive mind.

"You know there are people down there who have lived their entire lives on a single level. They think of the place like it's a planet." He chuckled, the sound empty of any malice. "In a way, I suppose I envy them. Anyway, each quadrant is a bit like its own country, if you know what that means?” Red nodded.

“Good. That’s good. Well, like I say, each one is a bit like a country. The people there have different dialects, customs that sort of thing. In fact, it’s so vast there are plenty of differences within each quadrant. Kind of like it used to be, I suppose.”

His voice took on a distant quality, as if he was looking into a past they were both hundreds of years too young to remember.

“Funny thing,” he said wistfully. “Back when people lived on Earth there were terrible wars over things like religious beliefs, territory and even the colour of people’s skin.”

Red made a little sound of disbelief, just as she knew her persona should. The idea, to a sheltered mind, was nothing short of barbaric. The stupidity of past generations that could be looked upon with scorn from the position of a new, enlightened age. The other part of her scoffed at the naivety.

“I know, I know,” Arto said lightly. “Such different times. Now we have billions of people, their ancestors forced together by the dangers of space, living out their lives happily side by side. Can you even imagine what our great-great-great-grandparents would think of that?”

She shook her head, but inside a thought surfaced that it would probably be pretty similar to what a lot of people thought today.

Jupiter’s Halo was indeed an example of how humanity could thrive when the petty differences were put aside in favour of the big things everyone had in common. But that didn’t mean it was perfect. She knew for a fact there were darker places down there. There was poverty, disparity and dissatisfaction. Where those things were, you got crime and where you got crime, it never took long for someone to start organising it.

Arto continued to wax lyrical about the wonderful harmony the station’s inhabitants had created. She let him carry on, listening with half an ear while she thought through the next steps she would need to take.

Arto would serve a purpose, his arrival in her life fortuitous, but not so startling that she would need to keep him around for long. She looked at the station again, now filling the viewscreen with a mix of colours that had risen out of the distant grey as they neared the end of their journey.

There was a darker side to the dream of humankind’s future. There were people down there who would do anything for the right price. Their very existence was the reason she’d come to the Halo. They didn’t know it yet, but somewhere deep in the belly of that not-so-perfect civilisation, someone was going to help her. Whether they wanted to or not.