Vyyda Book 1: The Haver Problem by Kevin Bliss Read Free Book Online Page A

those games, spending time alone in her room.
    Andrew Dahl told his daughter repeatedly how proud he was of her for managing to dodge the advances of the young HSPB agents who were being stationed in the Arcadia vessel depot, as the Burea u sought to phase out all non-agent personnel.
    Other young women hadn't been quite so steadfast in their refusal of these hormone-driven young men and ended up as pregnant, unmarried teens in a Martian city that offered little to anyone not officially attached to the Bureau.  Occasionally, one of these young women would manage to get the father of her child to do the r ight thing – but being the wife of an HSPB agent was only a small step above being an unwed mother (and, in some ways, worse).
     
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                  Caroline’s father was absolutely opposed to her joining the HSPB.  His association with the Bureau had come not from a desire to be part of the HSPB or fidelity to the ‘Earth cause’.  He was simply a man with marketable skills of value to the Bureau and a willingness to trade on that for work which provided for his family.
                  Beneath the surface, in fact, Andrew Dahl had a simmering contempt for Earth.  It wasn’t just that citizens of Mars and every other settled planet of C-Space felt lesser beings in the eyes of Earthers.  That much was to be expected.  But Caroline’s father seethed, as did many Martians, that Earth had halted terraforming efforts on their planet.  It could have created a viable oxygen environment over time.  Life on Mars would have been changed forever.
                  Instead, humans in C-Space continued to live in tunnels and underground spaces, breathing reasonably clean, but synthetically fashioned air.
                  Caroline’s interest in the Bureau was no rebellious strike against her father’s point of view.  She felt a loyalty, a kinship, to Earth.  At least, she thought she should.  She didn’t hate Earth.  She didn’t hold the planet and its people in contempt.  After all, Mars was part of Earth-controlled C-Space.  They were all in it together…weren’t they?
                  It didn’t hurt that there was a plum offering for those non-Earthers who made it into and through the Academy, distinguished themselves as agents and served a full twenty-five years: opportunity to apply for permanent residence on Earth.
                  It was no guarantee.  Most non-Earthers in the Bureau wouldn’t ever step foot on the home planet, even in service of its well-being.  Still, it was a chance, and a chance was more than most other C-Spacers ever got.
     
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    Extra effort went into straightening the Dahl residence on the night that Caroline planned to tell her father she'd be going to the Academy.  She also set the aroma-regulators to his favorite scent, "Carobra" (one which she happened to despise), and wore the dress he'd given her for her most recent birthday (also no favorite of hers).
    It was all for naught.  The person who came to the door nearly an hour aft er she expected her father was one of his longtime assistants in the maintenance depot.  Andrew Dahl was dead.
    Caroline nee ded to know how it had happened.  The man hemmed and hawed a bit, finally saying it was an accident: “Just one of those things.” 
    The weight of a standard HSPB transport displacement drive cooling base was more than adequate to crush a human skeletal system.  The fact that Andrew Dahl was eleven feet directly beneath one when it came loose left nothing to doubt.
    Caroline couldn’t mourn for long.   She had obligations.  Arrange the memorial.  Host the gathering in the Dahl residence immediately following and then meet a seventy hour deadline (the clock began ticking with