HERO               by Patrick Breheny

     It was the year zip. Year of the zero. Zeno, a cluster of planetoids at the outer rim of Andromeda, was a former earth colony, and “the rocks” would be making their fastest orbit in a millennium around their sun. The calendar had become cumbersome and unwieldly, or so said Jacques Rev-Olsen Fultar-Heinz, incipient Chairman of the Board, newly declared president. He saw the gleam of Providence in this short sun cycle. Could it be an accident that it occurred during the transition year of the Revolution, with Earth forces now peacefully disembarking, and Fulter-Heinz’ insurrectionists shaking their hands and moving computers and robots into their offices as they left? “NO,” was the cry from the Stadium Colossus of three million voices, filtered in unison through breathing apparatus, when Fultar-Heinz asked the question aloud. “NO,” agreed Fultar-Heinz, standing on a white marble pedestal nearly thirty feet high, one hundred sixty feet in diameter. “We will start anew. This short year of change shall be Zero. Next spring will begin the Year One, the first year of the Revolution” And three million pairs of hands clapped protective metal plates together, touching off sparks in the stadium oxygen, gently piped in beneath the seats to make enthusiasm more palatable. The planetoid’s naturally filtered haze caused the shooting sparks to change colors; it looked like the Fourth of July. The masks muffled the vocal roar, but with three million, it was at least as loud as Times Square on New Year’s Eve.  And why not? On the planetoid Stonechappy, capital of the Zeno chain, it was the New Year’s Eve, it was the Fourth of July.

     Bernie Mobutu-Kirby Colletti-Mohawk wouldn’t give one small gob of uncyclable excrement for any of it. He pushed his shuttle between the planetoids as he had done before the war, carrying the same business men and women who buzzed about Transition as if it were the new fad in pop psycho-politics, (as indeed it was), jubilant to have come out of the war finding Fultar-Heinz intending only to assimilate them into the new regime. The military employees Bernie ferried now wore different uniforms, had the sun dyed purple faces of fortieth to fiftieth generation Zenoites. Some of course had come with dark faces at the beginning of colonization, but now, after almost a thousand years, it was impossible to tell who came which way. Bernie didn’t care. The only difference between them and the Earth soldiers was in tints. Tints of complexion, tints of uniform color, tints of political chauvinism. In their eyes was the same glow of fervent righteousness, their carriage and manners rigid and impersonal. .Bernie was afraid of them all, the soldiers and the business people, and hated them with a perpetual and unexpressed fury. Not that one could not transcend class on Zeno. It happened all the time. It was just that the son of a shuttle operator was more likely to follow that profession than to become a computer physician. And certainly, unless a terrible failure, the son of a computer physician would not become a shuttle operator. But schoolmates of Bernie’s had moved into the professions, which was all the more acerbating. The usual route was through the military; joing the Space Force guaranteed an education in service, and a career upon leaving.

     The signs of Transition were everywhere. The large, gaseous, projected three dimensional image of former Colony Chairman D. R. Stonechappy, in the sky above the planetoid named after his ancestor, was evaporating, dispersing, along with the printed admonition THERE CAN BE NO IDLE HANDS ON EATH’S COLONY, so that it now read, in casually elongated letters, IDLE HANDS ON EARTH’S COLONY, and D.R.’s face was contorted as the gas expanded, his mouth open wide and twisting, as if he were about to emit an anguished scream.

    The masks were new too, part of Fultar-Heinz’ program of acclimation. He’d removed the protective bubbles that had covered the planetoids, and had permitted movement as on Earth. He did that because he believed it was time for Zenoites to adapt to their climate, convinced that removing protective gear would hasten the day when they could bound across the surface naturally. The names of the old institutions on the civic buildings were being covered by new mosaics, the magnetic calendar outside the Stadium Colossus was being re-programmed, and the morning newspaper reported the kidnapping of a departing colonel, a unique problem for

 Zeno, as it had no internal police force or jail.

     It hadn’t been much or a war. It was reported that Fultar-Heinz and a handful of usurpers had walked into the Colony Headquarters, some disintegration shots were fired, and the Earth forces were told to leave, which they agreed to do. The rumor among shuttle operators was that Earth was tired of shipping food and supplies to this far-off unreciprocating corner of another galaxy that had long ago run out of transportable minerals, and that the Revolution was arranged because otherwise there might have been a panic that would have prevented the Earthmen from leaving. Fultar-Heinz, the rumor went on, along with the military officers and the business people, would be leaving soon too. There was yet another rumor, more extreme, that Earth did not even know about the insurrection yet, and that as soon as the Earth soldiers got home, Zeno would be blasted out of the heavens. Either way, among ferryers, it did not look good. The forecast called for starvation or laser storm, and meanwhile Fultar-Heinz was having a grand time removing domes, fitting everyone with masks, and making speeches.

     Bernie once went through the training program for admission to the Space Force. It could not be said that he didn’t try. Bernie always tried. The problem was he failed. The most difficult period of Space Force training, the area that caused most drop-outs, was the Isolation Phase, a length of time, equivalent to six months on Earth, that must be spent alone in a space craft. It seemed to Bernie that if anyone could be suited for it, it would be the shuttle ferryers. Lord knows, he would welcome a respite from the inane chatter of his business passengers, and the sullen heavy silence that accompanied the presence of the military officers.

     Isolation tested the ability to deal with boredom. Time was not intended to pass leisurely. There was nothing to read, no way to tell if it were day or night, no images or sounds from outside. Meals were pre-prepared tasteless slabs of protein that had only to be taken from a freezer and placed momentarily in the thaw compartment, so even eating provided little distraction. Disoriented by a clockless existence, some people ate too much and got fat, while others nearly stopped eating completely. A few were found dead of starvation, had preferred, it seemed, communication with pain than with nothing. One could not even amuse oneself flushing the toilet because it operated silently, as did the faucets. There was only one way out. If pressed, the red suicide button was to fill the cavern with a fast and deadly gas.

     Bernie slept most of the time. Though he had no way of knowing it, he’d made more than three quarters of the way through, almost to five months, when he became ill. His temperature rose,. His side ached. It was part of the test, he was sure, and welcomed the break in monotony. But the fever persisted, high, for days, and he began to have doubts. The delirium tortured his mind. He began to think he was dying. He started wishing for death. Why did he want to join the Space Force anyway? He pushed the red button.

     They didn’t gas you when you pushed the button; they just came and let you out. You had failed. The illness was not part of the planned ordeal. Bernie was rushed to a hospital with a kidney infection. He almost died. He tried to die. He did not want to suffer anymore. He didn’t want to ferry any more passengers. He willed death every moment he was in the hospital, he prayed for it, but he recovered. He had failed again.

     They let him take the test over. But the red button was too tempting the second time. He knew it would get him out, and after three months he pushed it. It is a highly classified secret, but Bernie is the only person in the history of Zeno to have failed the Space Force Admission Test twice, though he holds the record for total time in the chamber.

     The ferryers had a sanctuary of their own, a restaurant reserved for them into which no one else was allowed. They met there before and after work, and on breaks. The other ferryers liked Bernie. He relieved thei boredom. They played jokes on him, laughed at him, loved to debate him because he argued so ferociously and always, in the end, face flushed and shouting, lost to his rage. But this evening they had no time for fun with Bernie. Fultar-Heinz and Transition was very much on their minds, as was the kidnapping this time of a ferryer, and their mood seemed to put them on the precipice of insurrection themselves. .Bernie listened quietly as he drank his hot celery drink, and when he finally spoke, he knew this time they would have to agree. “Someone should kill him,”  Bernie said. They exploded into raucous laughter at the absurdity of the suggestion, and when it subsided attacked him with a barrage of logic: “What good would killing him do?” “He’s just a figurehead,” “They’ll do what they want anyway.” “Where would anyone get a weapon?”

     Bernie knew where to get one. A gun. It was at home in a drawer. He’d bought it from an Earth non-com. Usually military who were not officers did not shuttle between the planetoids, but occasionally the enlisted were sent on errands. And in their holsters they carried guns, very old fashioned traditional steel ones, with barrels and chambers,  that fired bullets, but were retooled for Zenos' gravity. The soldier was shocked when Bernie offered to buy his gun, but when he was shown how easily it could have been sucked out of the cabin when he’d emptied the ashtray, he began to consider it. When Bernie offered two hundred units, the equivalent of a month’s salary, the soldier stopped considering, and the transaction was made. Bernie bought the gun because he believed he would eventually want to use it on himself. The reason he never had was that somehow he knew the attempt would be unsuccessful, his hand would slip as he fired, and he would only paralyze himself. On Zeno, cripples were placed in small crafts containing two years’ food supply, and ejected into the void. Isolation, silent toilets and delirium. Bernie had had enough of that. On ejection ships, there were no red buttons.

     By the time Bernie finished his shift and got back to his cubicle, there had been another kidnapping. He hit the TV switch, and Fultar-Heinz materialized in the chamber, discussing the phenomenon with a correspondent. They were projected in actual size by holography, appeared to really be in the room, except that Bernie walked through the reporter on his way to get a pre-mixed vegetable drink. Bernie sat at the bar and watched Fultar-Heinz other profile. This time a Space Force captain had been kidnapped. “There have been no ransom notes from any of the kidnappings. Money does not seem to be a motive,” the reporter asserted. Bernie went into his bedroom, took an object from his drawer, and came back to the bar.

     Fultar-Heinz argued, This is not a political crime. The perpetrator knows no class.” He pronounced it “clothes”. He spoke English with a polygot accent. Bernie straightened his arm in front of him, lowered his cheek to his shoulder, and aimed at Fulter-Heinz mirage.

   When he did fire, it was in the Stadium Colossus. Bernie was at the front of the stadium, up by the marble dias, but positioned close enough to the quake exit to get away quickly. It was a simple act to commit, unprecedented, and so advantaged by surprise that the shocked spectators sat and watched as Bernie fired five times. By the time they comprehended what was happening and began to react, Bernie had already escaped. He was aloft in his shuttle, sailing over Stonechappy, when the news went out on Broadcast. Three shots had hit Fultar-Heinz---two in the stomach, and one in the leg. He was not dead. He was expected to survive. He might, in time, fully recover. One of the stray bullets had lodged in a structural column. The other had hit a 66 year old woman in the temple, killing her instantly. The killer had exposed his hands to fire the gun, and they would be burned and blistered, but his identity was not yet known because of the masks. Fultar-Heinz’ Acclimation program was hampering the search for his would-be assassin.

     In the ferryer’s restaurant, Bernie wore gloves. Two of the ferryers in the room had been there the night he made his remark, and they glanced surreptitiously in his direction, but he was uncharacteristically ignored. Bernie knew he was already suspected. The burned hands and the extreme comment he had made would lead them to him. He decided, in the restaurant, to go home and use the remaining bullet on himself, succeed or not.

     He left a hundred unit tip on the table, and left as the waiter was telling him he’d forgotten his money .Before one reached the traffic lanes, there was a small enclosed mall with shops and a play area for children. At the edge of the mall, just before the point where protective gear became necessary, Bernie stopped to seam his mask and hand plates to the rest of his suit. A small delivery ship parked suddenly. The driver ran into the mall with an envelope as if in a hurry to complete his rounds, but suddenly whisked up one of the children, a little boy, and ran back toward his cruiser.

     Bernie moved impulsively, not cognizant that his actions could redeem him. He pursued, caught up with the kidnapper at the door of his vehicle, but he was powerful and pushed Bernie to the ground. Bernie hung on to his leg. The leg tried to shake him off. Bernie pushed the plate from his right hand, and with scorched fingers reached into the equipment pouch of his suit for the pistol. The abductor, when he saw the gun, released the screaming child. He wrestled with Bernie for control of the weapon. The waiter had followed Bernie outside to return the hundred units, and the shuttle ferryers, hearing the commotion through the door he left open, ran out too. The pistol discharged. Bernie fell dead. The waiter ripped the gun from the attacker’s hand, and the ferryers pinned him across his ship, beat him to unconsciousness, then dragged him back inside the mall, where they held him for the Space Force.

     The kidnapper was an alien. Inside Headquarters, he was interrogated, and confessed his motives. He was from Go, the closest inhabited planet to Zeno. .Go had not been powerful militarily, and could only watch the development and exploitation of Zeno with envy, relieved that the Earthmen at least did not see enough of value in Go to colonize it also. Goans, liked the ferryers, had perceived that Earth was getting ready to abandon this region of Andromeda, and the kidnappings had been an unsophisticated attempt to gather intelligence. Go had planned to take Zeno.

     They returned all the victims. The Go government was reprimanded but not punished. Earth did not want to foster the reputation of bully it was earning in other areas of Andromeda. The authorities, of course, figured out that Bernie had fired the shots at Fultar-Heinz. Earth, like one who discovers that a spurned lover is desired by someone else, reconsidered its role on Zeno. Bernie had given Zeno what it needed---a national hero and a definable enemy. The Goan kidnapper was tried and convicted of the attempted assassination on Fultar-Heinz, then sent as punishment into exile on an ejection ship. Earth would stay, Transition would continue, and Fultar-Heinz would lead the Government of Revolution in the Year One, when he was able to walk again .A new image would look down on Stonechappy: Bernard Mobutu-Kirby Colletti-Mohawk. A quote would be attributed to him, and appear beneath his projection. RESPECT FOR AUTHORITY IS THE FOUNDATION OF CIVILIZATION. His remains would be mummified and displayed under glass in the marble dias on which Fultar-Heinz had stood and declared Independence. Bernard Colletti-Mohawk would be the first name every school child on Zeno learned. He would become a legend of loyalty---the simple son of a shuttle ferryer, himself a ferryer, who had saved Zeno from a foreign conspiracy, and, in the year of the zero, sacrificed his life to the Revolution. History had brushed against Bernie’s shoulder, and been deflected. He belonged now to posterity. He would be remembered, by almost any standard, as a success.

Copyright, USA,  and all  the world, with  all rights reserved, by Patrick Breheny