Authors: Mark Kalina
The
screening procedure at the UEN side of the Arcadian Tannhauser Gate was perhaps
the most onerous that Aran had ever dealt with. It seemed like half the UEN
security operatives didn't know what they were doing, and the half that did
didn't seem to be the ones in charge.
The
facility itself was nothing like the ones that led to Elysium, or even to Mars;
those facilities were gleaming, bustling, full of passengers and commerce,
styled, like the most cutting edge airports, to give their passengers a sense
of the romantic and the exotic. This facility was more like a derelict
warehouse on a stupendous scale. Only the vast scale of the place, and the
delays caused by the seemingly endless, pointless waits, were impressive.
The
delay was more than just annoying. In another few hours, the traffic along the
single rail line through the gate would switch directions, receiving from
Arcadia instead of sending to it. If that happened before he and Ulla had made
it through the gate, they would have to wait another week. The Tannhauser gate
to Arcadia was only open for ten hours, once a week; five hours for transit to
Arcadia and five for transit from Arcadia. The Arcadians didn't have the power
generation infrastructure to run it for any longer.
"Why
don't they just run the gate longer?" Ulla asked him as they waited in yet
another short but utterly unmoving line.
"The
Arcadians don't have any real power sources, except solar power. No nuclear
fuel, no fossil fuels either. I suppose they could try wind power, but I've never
heard of them doing it on a large scale; not economical."
"So?"
"So,
well, a Tannhauser gate takes an enormous amount of power. They have to charge
up banks of capacitors for a while to build up enough power to open it. And
when the capacitors are drained, the gate closes," Aran explained.
"Why
not put the gate generator on this side, then?" Ulla asked. "They
still have reactors in the FSNA, don't they?"
"Well,
that's a bit of a long story," Aran said. "Short version is, the gate
generator used to be on this side, but that meant joint UEN and FSNA operation,
and the UEN had a lot of problems with smuggling. So they moved the gate
generation equipment to the other side, more or less. Or rather, they set up
new equipment on the other side and then removed the UEN-owned setup on this
side. It gave the UEN full control of the gate, you see."
"Ah."
"Yes,
and when the Arcadians took over the gate facility, it gave them full control
of the gate. Though UEN forces did manage to sabotage the reactor power system
before they left, so the Arcadians have to use their own now. Hence the
schedule we're on."
"You've
studied this?" Ulla asked.
"I
spoke to some Arcadians about it, last time I was there," Aran replied.
"Ah, here we go," he added as a new UEN official arrived and the line
finally began to move.
The
trip through the Tannhauser gate wasn't any different from the previous trips,
for Aran, but it was still something worth seeing. The designers of the train
cars must have agreed, since the passenger windows were curved out in a shallow
bulge, allowing the passengers to see, more or less, what was ahead of them.
Multiple
rail lines entered into the concrete dome and converged on the huge steel
sphere of the central chamber. Approaching it, one could tell that the gate
building's concrete dome extended as far underground as it did above ground.
The sheer volume of the space enclosed by the concrete dome —concrete
sphere, rather— was on a scale that inspired a certain degree of awe. The
steel sphere, a hundred meters across, was in the exact center of the concrete
sphere, held up by huge steel pillars and struts. The rail lines ran towards it
on massive elevated truss tracks, and from the window of the pressurized train
car, Aran could see down to the bottom of the outer, concrete sphere; a
dizzying, vertiginous view. The feeling of ominous vertigo was magnified by the
lighting; just a few powerful projectors cut the darkness, casting cavernous
shadows. The effect was, Aran thought, more than a little gothic, bordering
perhaps on the nightmarish.
The
train ran slowly, each car separated and pulled along by a motors set into the
track. There were a dozen tracks leading towards the vast steel sphere from all
sides. Only one of them had been active, these last seven years, but the others
looked clean and intact. Aran seemed to recall the other tracks had looked
somewhat dilapidated, the last time he'd been through the gate to Arcadia, but
he hardly paid it any mind.
Each
track ran to a huge airlock, so that it was as if a crown of airlocks surrounded
the enormous steel sphere. A mad scientist, Aran thought, would have been
delighted with the visual effect.
There
were another dozen passengers in the train car, along with Aran and Ulla, but
there were still seats to spare and he'd made sure to sit next to the German
reporter.
"That's
the inner gate chamber," he told Ulla. "It's a hundred meter sphere
of steel. Strong enough to survive a nuclear blast, I've been told. It's
maintained in a state of vacuum, and the actual gate is generated inside."
"Right,"
she said, nervously, and Aran took the chance —and the opportunity—
to put his hand on hers. She smiled briefly at the reassurance, which made Aran
smile in turn. But the truth was, the Tannhauser gate was uncanny and he couldn't
blame Ulla for being a bit scared.
The
airlock in front of
the car just
ahead of them cycled open, admitted the car, and cycled closed.
"Our
turn next," Aran said.
Ulla
just nodded, and gripped his hand more tightly.
The
airlock opened in front of them, and the car rolled forward on its rails. There
was a clanking sound as it crossed from the outside rails to the rails inside
the airlock, and then the airlock closed.
The
sound of the airlock's vacuum pumps was loud but not overwhelming. But still, no
one in the train car said a word. The airlock pumps finished their job and the
inner doors opened, and he could see the actual Tannhauser gate.
The
Tannhauser gate looked superficially like a 10 meter wide mirrored sphere, save
that whatever it was reflecting was somewhere else. Or maybe it was the
reflection of a reflection... or perhaps an infinite series of reflections. If
one looked at it out of the corner of one's eye, patterns of light that seemed
hauntingly coherent seemed to crawl across the surface of the sphere. Aran had
heard that some people claimed to see faces, or symbols... though he never had.
Looking at the gate for more than a moment tended to make him dizzy though, as
if the his eye —or his mind— could not quite process what it was
seeing.
"It's
beautiful," breathed Ulla, still holding his hand.
"Yes,"
he said.
The
car slid forward, into the perfect, incomprehensible sphere.
There
was a brief feeling of tension, intense and almost unbearable, but over after
only a few seconds. And then the Tannhauser gate was behind him, and he was
looking at the inside of another huge steel sphere, none too different from the
one they had just been in. But this one was better lit, and the structure of
the elevated railways was different. And it was more than seven light-years
away from where they had just been.
"Welcome
to Arcadia," said the official. At least, Aran was pretty sure it was an
official. The man was wearing a loose, red and orange patterned shirt and baggy
shorts. Other than a modern Japanese data terminal, the man looked like a
prosperous tourist in some tropical resort. On the other hand, Aran had
expected something of the sort. Ulla was more surprised.
"The
UEN requires all visitors to record their names and public identification
numbers on this terminal," the man said, speaking to a gathered crowd of
about fifty passengers. "You can do that if you like, or not. But if you
don't, you may not be allowed to return to Earth. Allowed by the UEN, that is.
We don't care either way. I'm sorry to say that there's just the one terminal,
so if you ladies and gentlemen would form a single line, we can get you
registered and on your way. Anyone who wants to bypass this registration can
proceed through the doors behind me."
"Is
this some sort of joke?" Ulla asked, "or a trick? A trap to get
gullible fools in trouble with local authorities? I bet there's a huge fine for
anyone who believes that line."
"No...
no, that's not the way the Arcadians work," Aran said. "They don't
really care who comes in. I've heard speculation that they have some first rate
facial recognition systems aimed at us, but that's only to make sure that
certain specific people are noticed if they try to come in. Otherwise, as far
as I can tell, they don't care."
"But
that's crazy. Anyone could just come here and..."
"That's
just it. Anyone can, but then what? There's nothing the government does for the
people here. There's not even a system of IDs here. No ID cards, and no central
ID recognition system either."
"No
ID? But how can that work? How do they keep people from cheating
on their social welfare receipts, or
exceeding their quota for educational services. Or medical care?"
"Well,"
Aran said, shaking his head, "that's the thing. There are no social
services. Or not from the government. Some private charities run medical
centers for people who can't afford to pay for medical care. Same for shelter
and food. And education. There's a coherent system for all of them. Academic
credits, grades, medical records, all that sort of thing is pretty well
organized... But none of them are run by the Arcadian government."
"So
what does the government do for the people?" Ulla asked.
"A
few things. They run the Defense Force, like I said, and there's a thing called
the Office of Standards, but all that does is offer reports on the performance
of private service providers. It has no actual authority over them, though.
There's a very basic justice system, with courts for dispute resolution and
some police for criminal investigations. And that's about it...
"And
there's no taxes," he added, with a smile at his colleague's probable
response.
"That's...
not possible... is it? This place is insane!" Ulla said, visibly upset.
"There
are Government fees on some services," Aran explained. "A Defense Force
fee, and a Police and Courts fee. They're easy to avoid, but most people make a
point of paying them. And the government accepts donations. And the crazy part
is, they get them.
"Their
government is democratic, mind you," Aran went on, "after a fashion.
And disturbing. Most things here are. Anyone can vote, so long as they've
served in the Arcadian Defense Force. That's the only requirement, and just
about everybody serves. It's not really conscription, though. There's no law
forcing people to serve, though I understand that there's a lot of social
pressure. And a lot of the private social services won't deal with you if you
avoid serving."
"So
non-violent people are disenfranchised and shunned? That's barbaric!"
"Well,
they say that Defense Force service isn't always military per se. Lots of
infrastructure work," Aran said.
"Oh.
Well, that makes sense," Ulla said. "Social work obligations."
"Not
the way you'd think, though."
"Yes,"
she smiled, "I'm beginning to expect that. But the whole thing sounds insane."
"Yes,"
Aran agreed. "But like I said, somehow they make it work. And that's what
I'm here to get the story on. The how."
"Yes,"
she agreed. "I'm glad my job is simpler. Just two interviews with biotech
leaders."
"I
have to wonder, though," she told him a few minutes later, as they walked
into a long concourse where automated luggage handlers were unloading the
arriving train cars, "why the Arcadians put up with this government of
theirs. Why don't they demand... I don't know, civilized norms and proper
social services?"
"Well..."
Aran said. "I asked some Arcadians the same thing, last time I was here.
If anything, though, they think their government does too much. Some of them
think it should just run the Defense Force, and let the rest be handled by private
industries. And a few of them want the Defense Force run privately as
well."
Ulla
only stared.
"How
much of their history do you know?" Aran asked. "And for that
matter,
how much do you want me to
bore you with?"
"Believe
me, Aran," Ulla said, smiling again, "you're not boring me."
He
smiled back.
"As
for history," she went on, "I did some reading. I know the first
exploration gate to Arcadia was opened in 2039, and that the surface gate was
established in 2047. Then there was the incident in 2061, when the Arcadians
slaughtered a bunch of refugees. And the war with the UEN in 2070, when they
captured the gate."