Lost and Found

The elevator took Portia to the uppermost level of the building. It immediately took off at nauseating speeds, forcing Portia steady herself with one hand. She never got use to the lurching sensation of a body being pitched into the air quickly.
Encased by a transparent blue material, the elevator offered a stunning view of the rooftops of the city and further out to the green canopy of trees and blue water of the river. The nice thing about working with aging, solar powered dependent machines was the view. The power conservation during the War Years lead to many technological innovations and radical design changes in architecture.
The blue tinted glass doors slid open, revealing a vaulted room the size of stadium flooded with sunlight. All four walls were made of a high density, clear material that offered the visual clarity of glass but possessed the strength to resist powerful winds. Green plants hung in neat rows down the length of the room. While being a cache for solar power, the room also generated the fresh oxygen supply for the building.
Ambient lighting recognized Portia’s Identity Signature and adjusted the lighting specifications to her pre-set preferences. Music broadcasted from her Pod and played over speakers in the room. The vid screen automatically tuned into the morning broadcast of Superpower Kung-Fu Koalas.
A soft golden wash lighted the space, mimicking the sunshine. Portia’s office was exposed to the theatrical elements of the weather. On the worst days, it was a little too sunny for Portia’s tastes. She rather enjoyed the rain and lightening storms. Nothing was quite as thrilling as seeing lighting form at eye level. Sunsets were also rather spectacular.
Large, clumsy looking machines formed the Data Initiative of Corporate Colonialism. The machines were organized in clusters around large cylindrical power conduits. The machine received the transmissions from colony ships. Some of the machine dated back to the original colonies. That was history. Each cluster of the historic machines was wired to broadcast to the monitoring station, the only modern machine in the room.
Scutter bots drifted from cluster to cluster. Scutters performed maintenance inspections and minor repairs. A major repair was Portia’s responsibility. Surprisingly, major repairs were few and far in between. The old machines, while lumber and huge, were very stable and rarely broke.
This was her private kingdom in the beautiful city.
A terminal was blinking. A new message was received, waiting to be filed down the proper channels. Because many of the colony ships left before Slingshots were developed, they moved slowly through spaces, often taking a generation to reach their destination. Their equipment to transmit back to Earth was equally slow. Twenty years to a destination, twenty years back to Earth to let the Corporation know the situation. Some of the colony ships left before the Corporation and were acquired in the Takeover.
On some level it registered that the Crosby’s terminal was blinking. Yesterday she decoded a transmission that the Crosby was about to go planet side. The world had been waiting ten years for the Crosby to arrive, since the last transmission from the Hope.
Portia dropped her satchel on the floor and focused on the terminal.
The signal was faint at first but with eat replay grew stronger. “…The Hope is gone…No signs of any one. No buildings, no equipment, not even the ship.”
Portia leaned closer into the screen. The figures were small, outfitted in old fashioned looking jumpsuits, what everyone seemed to wear in the past, and the camera panned slowly across perfect very green and very empty fields. The narrator began to speak again, “We landed this morning and have only done preliminary scans on the planet. No life forms. Now that we’ve landed, we can search for…remains. But we landed at the coordinates the Hope was supposed to be at. They should be here. We do not have the wrong location. Our equipment is working properly. It’s been check three times…”
The transmission ended suddenly.
Portia replayed the message, typing code to increase the signal. Messages traveling long distances had the unfortunate habit of becoming corrupted.
“Captain Regalia of the Crosby speaking. We landed this morning at the rendezvous point for the Hope Colony after our long journey. I can’t tell you how glad we are to be on land but the Hope is gone…” The message replayed in its entirety, ending at the same abrupt point.
Portia chewed on her lower lip. The Hope was lost.
Ten years ago transmission ended from the Hope, just as the colony was landing on the virgin planet. And then, nothing. The old machine dedicated to the Hope received years worth of static, all tagged like transmissions, but containing no data. Just static.
It was assumed at the time that the Hope’s transmission equipment was broken and irreparable. Similar situations happen with many of the colonies. The Crosby was on a ten year trajectory after the Hope, scheduled to land ten years on the same planet with the Hope, bringing supplies and a fresh load of colonists. Twenty years there, twenty years for the transmissions to arrive back to Earth.
Once the Crosby arrived, the little mystery would be solved.
Only the Hope wasn’t there.
Portia forwarded the transmission to her supervisor, Viktor Ang, who was always referred to with his full name. Viktor Ang preferred it that way.
The Hope was a very high profile colony with important persons on board. Its departure nearly fifty years ago from Earth was a celebration marking the end of the War Years. Its disappearance was bound to be noticed.

The manager of the Data Initiative of Corporate Colonies rarely had to venture out of her kingdom above the beautiful city, but it happened. Portia tried to make herself invisible as she walked through the labyrinth of offices and workstations. Most of the employees of the Corporation, the Shareholders, were diligently working and did not lift their eyes from the displays on their desks as Portia drifted by.
Portia walked past the office of Viktor Ang. She kept her eyes forward. She did not have to look to know the man sitting behind the glass wall was keeping his eyes on his desk. No eye contact was preferred.
About a year ago, Portia and a team of other programmers were working on the targeting problems with the Slingshot. True, Drives were new technology and could go faster than light, but they were also expensive. Drives were practical on paper but only a handful existed in the real world, which was why improving the targeting of Slingshots was so important. Slingshots were still the primary means of transportation in the universe.
Slingshots worked on a simple principle. The large device could hyper accelerate a ship and shoot it off to the far corners of the universe. The only problem being that the targeting was imprecise. Ships could not decelerate into the middle of planet. Targets locations had to be set in a nice open stretch of nothingness.
Surprisingly, huge amounts of nothing were hard to come by. The same areas were used time and again by various ships. It was only a matter of time before pirates and other undesirables would lay in wait to attack the cargo vessels. More precise targeting could eliminate this problem.
Portia solved it. She led the team and figured out how to narrow the trajectory to a smaller area, thus increasing the possible locations vessels could land. It was a break through. It was exactly the kind of thing a good Consumer worked so hard for, the type of achievement that might let her catapult into an Executive position. It might for anyone else, if Viktor Ang were not their supervisor.
He took the credit, deliberately obscuring Portia’s Identity Signature on a number of documents.
Portia angrily confronted him.
“You should sit down,” he said calmly. “Are your nerves acting up again?”
“There’s nothing wrong with my nerves.”
“My dear, but there is. We all worked equally on this project…”
“Some more equally than others.”
“And yet you seem to be operating under the idea that you were a one woman army.” Viktor Ang slide a box of expensive candies towards her across the surface of the highly polished desk.
Portia did not take a candy.
“Perhaps if you admitted the extent of the help and support you received, you find the rewards very…rewarding.”
“Maybe my nerves are a bit…nervous,” Portia said.
Portia was given a promotion, a generous bonus and a nice long vacation at a rejuvenation clinic.
Her reflection followed her down the corridor, gleaming on the freshly cleaned glass surface. She was thirty but she looked like she was barely out of school. Everyone had a price, including her.
She was now in charge of Support and Data Management of the Colonist Databanks. Well, she was, but it was recently remained Data Initiative for Corporate Colonialism. It sounded impressive but really she was the care taker of room filled with ancient machines and supervised a half dozen service droids. She repaired the machines as needed, classified incoming messages from the colonies and made sure the right messages go to the right people: DICC.
“Portia?”
He saw her. Portia’s feet turned into blocks of lead and her shoulders squared themselves defensively.
Viktor’s disproportionately large head was careened around the door of his office. At that moment, his entire body appeared to be one large head floating space.
“Can I speak you? Privately.”
Portia did not reply but entered the office and perched herself on the edge of the chair opposite his desk. Carefully she arranged the pink skirt.
Viktor was more than a head but no much more. His thin frame seemed to be swallowed by a comically large shirt and jacket. A power grubbing, back-stabber should at least dress better.
“How is your grandmother, the national treasure?”
“She’s good,” Portia said cautiously.
“Excellent, excellent.” Viktor Ang leaned back into his chair. His head seemed to bob up and down under its own power. “I’ve been meaning to speak with you about the Corporation’s dress code policy.”
Portia squeezed her knees together. “This skirt is only one inch above the knees,” she said.
“It’s not that.” He seemed to scan the length of her body. “The…length seems appropriate, but it’s hardly professional, is it?”
A ruffled pink skirt? Why did it seem like a good idea to purchase the skirt when she it would never fly in the ultra-conservative Corporation office.
“I thought the skirt was fun,” Portia said.
“Fun has nothing to do with work.”
He didn’t have to tell her twice.
“The Handbook does not forbid bright colors. Or ruffles.”
“But the Handbook does require professional dress and gives examples of what is appropriate.”
“But it does not say ruffles are inappropriate.”
“Failure to strictly forbid is not permission to abuse the dress code. Do you honestly think the Corporation can foresee every fad and trend you drag into this office? And that satchel…”
“Leave the satchel,” Portia growled. “The only person who ever seems to have an issue with my dress is you, and you’re hardly a fashion plate.”
Viktor paused, stunned. Absently he grabbed the Data Pad on the desk. “Ahem. We’ve run the Cost Analysis…”
“Already?”
“The Crosby’s message received quite a high priority, you can imagine. Unfortunately, the deficit accrued by a rescue mission would far outstrip any chance of profit.”
“But the Corporation has the means to be there instantly!” The new Drive ships could be there quickly, cover the distance faster than light. It wasn’t exactly instantly, but close. Even Slingshoting would get a crew there quickly.
“At a great cost.”
“But all those people…”
“The message is already twenty years old. There’s no sense in mounting a mission now.”
“The Hope…”
“Is long gone. All survivors are equally gone.”
“We don’t know that for certain.”
Viktor Ang tapped on the display on his desk, symbols floated to the surface. “Based on the transmissions already received, preliminary scans of the planet demonstrate no minerals and no resources worth the Corporation’s time.”
“A high priority, but apparently not high enough,” Portia muttered. So that was it. Cost Analysis indicated there was nothing on the Crosby’s planet worth going through the trouble of looting. She spoke loudly, “Does the Corporation intend on abandoning those people?”
A broken smile tore across Viktor Ang’s face. “They’ve been on their own for forty years now, I hardly think they’ll notice the difference.”