In the Name of Earth

Chapter 4: Like Nebula & Stardust

Ludwig Weber was lying on his bed, sliding through the virtual pages of the latest issue of Nebula & Stardust when his dormitory’s door slid open unannounced. The blonde man jumped to his feet and hurried to grab a shirt, stumbling over a misplaced chair along the way. As he got dressed, he could not help but see two men, quite similar to each other, hugging on the corridor. When the older one left, the younger man took another glance out of the viewport and walked into the dormitory.

“Du bist sein Sohn!” Ludwig barked at the newly arrived stranger, still only half dressed.

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, you haven’t got you’re translator yet. Sorry. My name’s Ludwig. You can call me Lud!”

“Marvin. As in…”

“Marvin Grant Junior!” Lud interrupted, shaking the other man’s hand. “I know! I helped teleport you up! Willkommen! Willkommen!”

“Thanks. Are we going to be roommates?”

“Ja!” the fair skinned man was already getting rid of his shirt again. “Fourth year engineering, so we’ll be stuck together for the next two or so.”

“I thought the courses were three years,” Marvin scratched his head and settled onto the free bed.

“Three years for diplomats and administrators. We engineers get all the hard work! Most of the technology here is alien, takes time to learn!”

“Are you saying we didn’t build Gaia Station?” Marvin asked.

“Only a tiny part! Most of it, especially the teleports, was given by friendly aliens. Like 5G, aspirin and the original La La Land script,” Lud returned to his bed, picked up the tablet to resume his reading and pulled a can of beer from under the bed. “Beer?”

Marvin blinked twice.

“You’re telling me all that stuff was not created by humans?”

“Yes! Except beer. Beer is German!” Ludwig took a sip of the beer. “Want one?”

“Man, aspirin is ancient!” Marvin was back on his feet, pacing around the room. “You’re shitting me!”

“I’m not! We’ve been around a while, you know? We just can’t dump all the knowledge on Earth at once, people would uh… how do you say? Freak out! Now do you want a beer or no?”

“Okay!” Marvin took a can from Lud’s hand and settled down again. “I’m just a bit overwhelmed, you know? This is all nuts!”

“Wait until you see your first alien!”

“Have you ever seen one?”

“Me? I just tinker with machines. But we do get galactic magazines!” the blonde tossed the tablet on his hands across the room.

Picking up the device, Marvin mused at the sight of an illustrated novel about two alien space-rangers. He couldn’t make out the texts, but the illustrations were astonishing, nevertheless.

“The adventures of Nebula and Stardust!” Lud said. “Better than any Earth comics I’ve ever read!”

“How do you understand it?” Marvin handed the tablet back.

“Every recruit shoves a live psychic fish in their ear that allows active translation of speech and text.”

Marvin’s jaw dropped.

Lud cackled. “Kidding, it’s just this thingy,” he showed a small metallic device stuck to the base of his skull. “They’ll give you one during introduction tomorrow. By the way, you’ll find your infopad under the pillow. Uniforms and pajamas are in that wall, just press the panel. Students get your teleport home every three months, but maybe your dad can cut the line for you. Think he can bring some mint chocolate to us? I’m all out!”

Marvin did not reply. He was too busy studying the infopad he found under his pillow. It was just a metallic frame and a slab of glass on which all information was projected. All he had to do was press his thumb against the screen and all his personal data was transferred to the device.

As Alexa had promised, his schedule for the following day had already been uploaded. Apparently he would start with breakfast, then Introduction to Space, followed by two periods of Interstellar Sociology, alternating with lunch, and finish the day with Recent Galactic History.

“Pro-tip?” Lud spoke again. “Always keep that on you. It has a map of the station and is synched to its clock. You’ll be surprised how easy it is to get lost on both aspects. The corridors all look the same, and when you’re not spinning around the sun the hours just don’t seem to pass.”

The comment made Marvin look at the time displayed on his tablet.

“It’s one in the morning?!” Marvin gasped. It was afternoon when he left New York!

“Get used to it,” Lud powered his tablet off and lowered the light intensity. “G’night, Marvin! Something tells me we’ll have a ton of fun together. Just like Nebula & Stardust!”

***

It was safe to say that the least surreal part of Marvin’s night were his dreams. Reality had just taken so many leaps in everything he thought he knew that staying awake was far more confusing than drifting away into his own subconscious.

Another matter that had occupied the young man’s mind while rolling on the bed was the question of just what exactly he would be served for breakfast. Alien eggs? Radioactive bacon? Some shiny drink from Alpha Centauri?

The answer was probably the most surprising alternative possible: toast with butter and a good old apple. Coffee to wash it down. Black.

“Why’s everyone looking at me?” Marvin asked Lud while they both took their seats on the cafeteria.

“Why wouldn’t they? Your father is the most important man in the station! Everybody is wondering what you’re like. You can probably pick any girl here. Or guy, just saying.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure…” from across the room, Marvin met Alexa’s gaze and she immediately looked away. “I get the feeling most people are thinking this was nepotism.”

“Don’t be silly! Even your dad can’t get you in if you screw up on the UN tests!” Lud spoke, mouth full of toast.

“Tell that to Lady British over there,” Marvin nodded at Alexa and Lud peeked over his shoulder.

“Alexa Hilburn? Ha! She’s one to speak! Her papa is Lord Hilburn, one of the richest men in the UK and one of the very few people on Earth who know about EDS.”

That explained why she had changed the subject so promptly when Marvin asked about her joining the EDS yesterday.

“What about you, Lud? Blue blood?”

“Nah, no room for that in Engineering, my dude! Besides, if I had all the money in the world I wouldn’t be busting my ass in space. I’d be soaking on a hot tub back in Berlin, probably with a few swimsuit models,” Lud’s stare drifted away in the distance as he started a daydream, then he suddenly snapped back to it, going pale. “Oh, scheisse!”

“What?”

“Hear that?”

Marvin paid attention to all the sounds around them, but all he heard was the bustling conversation of the nearby tables.

“The humming. It was like Huuum, turned to Hummm.”

Now that Lud mentioned it, Marvin did hear the difference in the faint background rustle of Gaia Station’s inner workings.

“What’s that?” Marvin asked.

“Gravity generator. Been acting up for weeks. Step away from your coffee!”

Before Marvin could ask why, the hum stopped entirely, his weightless butt leaving the bench on which he sat, just as his breakfast did. The toast and the apple floated before his face, and the coffee slowly escaped the mug in a vaguely spherical body of smoking hot liquid.

“Dear students, gravity will be restored shortly,” a polite feminine voice echoed from the station’s speakers. “This is not a drill. Please proceed with routine activities as intended. Engineers of mark 4 or higher, report to maintenance deck.”

“That would be me. See ya later, Marv! Watch for the coffee bubbles!” Lud waved, then pushed himself off the bench on a swift flight to the exit.

Marvin, though, remained floating just out of reach of any bolted furniture, helplessly trying to navigate the air. He would need help to get back on his feet.