Keeping the lines from blurring
I step off the shuttle with all intention of doing my duty. For 18 years, I have lived my life giving and receiving orders, ignoring the minor deatil of whether I live or hate the men I command or those who command me. My father raised me this way, teaching me to see the fine line between order and chaos. The blur it is to invite disaster. Over those years, I have found my own reasons for keeping the faith, needing to stay in control of the essential details of my life. All this rocks a little when the hatch opens and I stand at the top of the metal stairs and look out at the surface of Faer III. A wave of heat and stench flows over me like a physical blow and I stagger back against the on coming business men who have journeyed here with me from orbit. Fright is the wrong word for how I feel. I act a little giddy – maybe even drunk – so that the other passengers eye me as if thinking I have consumed a full gourd of Aljar Nectar. One man in a well-tailored suit raises his nose so ...