Vale of Stars (11 page)

“What else is a leader?”

Jene looked at him for a long moment. “You are the Captain of Ship. Why don’t you lead?”

“Flight Crew turns its eyes outward. I have been Captain for a long time, and in all that time, we have not intervened in internal affairs.”

Jene had never considered there could be any other kind of ‘affairs’ with regard to Ship. But his statement reminded her of the question of his age. She looked at Costellan quizzically. “How old are you? Are you a Gen Two?”

Costellan smiled again. “No, Jene. I am much older than that. I thank you, however, for the compliment.”

Jene reeled. He was a Gen One? To her knowledge, he was the only one left alive—Old Deborah Waugh had died seven years ago at the age of ninety-six, having been born in year five of the voyage. This man could be the oldest man in the entire mission! Jene was suddenly flooded with questions about the history of the mission—here was a man who had been alive for the vast majority of the voyage.

“You’re a Gen One? Sir, I—”

“No, Doctor. I said I was much older than that. I am what you call Gen Zero. I am one of the original launch crew.”

Jene did not have any more mental room for amazement. One question, though, was answered: the mysterious familiarity of his name. She suddenly remembered a holograph of the launch crew from her history lessons. Eduard Costellan had been a junior officer then.

“Are you the only one left, sir?” She asked, automatically adding the honorific.

“I am. The workers you see about me are all Gen One.” Jene glanced at the hovering technicians. “I suppose as a medical doctor you’d be interested in our antiagathic process?” He chuckled. “Nine-tenths of the process is simple—live your entire life in free-fall. My descendants will live even longer than I, though such a long life, under these conditions, is not the blessing it would at first glance seem.”

“How have you kept yourselves from disease? Do you have a doctor?”

“We have a Flight Surgeon, but her talents have not been necessary for many years. We sometimes succumb to degenerative diseases—I myself am in the beginning stages of osteoporosis.”

“Microgravity.”

“Exactly. But our doctor tells me that if I continue to exercise and take the calcium treatments, I should live another twenty years.”

Jene did not answer. She was beyond answering.

“But I did not call you here for that, Doctor. There is a more pressing matter to discuss. As per flight doctrine, we launched a telemetry probe some time ago to begin collecting data on Epsilon Eridani 3. I released our findings weeks ago to Councilman Arnson as the civil authority in Ship. I wish to give them to you now.”

Jene found that she did not want to object. She nodded slightly.

Costellan collected himself and said, in a tone that reminded Jene of a resident at the hospital giving a formal report, “Eighty-six days ago, we launched one of our six planetary probes towards EE3 to begin surveying conditions there. We have since discovered far more than I believe Arnson has made public.”

“He told me departments would get the data soon,” Jene said, anger rising in her. Medical needed that data to prepare for landing. If Arnson had withheld vital data, the medical teams would have to work overtime to provide the necessary panimmunity vaccines. The anger was almost instantly replaced with shame—shame that she could feel more anger towards Arnson for withholding data when the man had killed her husband.

“I do not believe he would have ever released this data. I will allow you to hear the transmission yourself.” Costellan floated to one of the technicians and spoke briefly to him.

Jene frowned. What did he mean, transmission? As she wondered at his choice of words, the answer came to her through a static-laced sound that echoed through the control room.

“…to Colony Ship
Odyssey
, this is the New Earth colony on Epsilon Eridani 3. We have picked up your probe on radar. We have been expecting you. You’ll be glad to know that we have reserved a sizeable portion of our colony for your use upon your arrival, and we stand ready to assist you in any way we can. We will send you transmission details so you can respond with what we’re sure will be a stream of questions. But for now, welcome to New Earth, brothers and sisters!”

Jene stared at Costellan as the voice of the com operator sounded in the room. Costellan glanced at his technician and the voice ceased.

“How?” Jene croaked.

“We’ve been in contact with them for a while now. It seems that Earth developed a method of space travel that beat our cruising speed of point one c—that’s one tenth the speed of light—by a factor of five. Twenty-one years after our departure, the Colony Ship
Argo
was launched. It achieved a velocity nearly half the speed of light and arrived at Epsilon Eridani in just over twenty years. Because of the difference in launch dates and relative velocities, there was no practical way for the
Argo
to contact us even if they knew our position, and as you know, our contact with Earth was terminated fourteen years into the mission due to power demands. We calculate that the
Argo
overtook us about eighty-one years ago. They have established a thriving colony that has been in existence on EE3, which they call New Earth, for sixty years and which has a population of about fifty-five thousand.”

Jene felt the room drop away from under her. She was suddenly quite terrified of the constant falling sensation on the Flight Deck and vomited unceremoniously, trying vainly to cover her mouth and spare the surfaces of the room.

The four technicians swam to mop up the offending matter as Costellan quickly hugged her to him. “It’s all right, Doctor. The Commissar-General of New Earth is a very likeable woman. I think you’ll like it there.”

Costellan went on in soothing tones about the nature of New Earth—the planet had been partially terraformed, though the colony was still living in pressure domes.  Ample living space had been prepared for the newcomers aboard Ship and the inhabitants of New Earth stood ready to accept their brothers and sisters with open arms.

But Jene knew why she was crying. It was not because suddenly, in a single, ironic stroke of cruelty on the part of the universe, the pioneers of Ship had been reduced to refugees and immigrants, nor was it because of relief that none of the surviving Class D children would have to suffer because of inadequate medical care during planetfall—it was because she had set in motion a war that had killed her husband and her daughter’s father; a war that had killed dozens of people, including Bobby Yancey: a war that had not been necessary. Now the grief of Renold’s death came flooding into her, but it was not alone.

Book Two

Colony

With detached interest, Kuarta watched her daughter play with the small museum’s native stone and mineral collection. It was a boon to have such a collection inside the Dome where children could handle some of the harmless specimens of Epsilon Eridani’s geology. Yallia had only recently turned five years old by Ship reckoning, but had yet to reach her fourth New Earth year. She was not yet old enough to venture outside, even under strict supervision. There were just too many risks.

“Ma, when is Gramma coming?” Yallia asked, her hands turning over a bleached-green Epsilon stone.

“She had some work to do. I’m sure she’ll be here soon.”

Kuarta smiled despite herself as she thought of the feisty old woman. Her mother was still as formidable a force as ever—in the familial as well as political arenas. It had been she who had spearheaded the Genetic Integration laws seven Ship years ago—no, eight, Kuarta remembered. It had taken Kuarta and her partner Dolen four years to conceive Yallia. Kuarta remembered her mother’s apprehension at Dolen’s presence in her life. He was one of the
Argonaut
-descendants, genetically superior to even the purest of the Ship immigrants. Tall, handsome, possessed of a keen intelligence and a remarkably efficient and healthy body, as well as unusual charm and grace, Dolen had nevertheless unnerved Jene. She liked the young professor, certainly; it was the inevitable social friction that worried her. Argies did not marry Shippies.

“I think you should wait, that’s all I’m saying,” Kuarta remembered her mother telling her those four years ago. “The ink isn’t even dry on the legislation, and you want to go and be a test case. Isn’t it enough that your mother wrote the damn laws?”

“It’s been three years, Ma,” Kuarta had said with a grin. “You know very well that by now there have been half a dozen unions between argies and us, some of them with children. No one will take notice of me.”

“The hell they won’t. Look, Kuarta, for better or for worse, you get the runoff from the attention people splash on me. A Commissar’s offspring is always under suspicion, but you’re the daughter of one of only two Ship Commissars.”

Kuarta had become angry at that comment. “
Ship
Commissar? There’s no such thing, Ma. You’re a Commissar just like the other fourteen. You’ve got the same responsibility and authority as the rest of them.”

Jene had smiled indulgently at her daughter’s charming naiveté. “I’d like to believe that, dear, but it’s just not so. Perralt and I have no illusions as to our true stature in the Assembly. Twenty Ship years is a long time but not long enough to erase deeply held prejudices. She and I are only two voices, from different Domes at that. Two voices against thirteen don’t get a lot done.”

“You passed the G.I. laws,” Kuarta countered. “You convinced enough argie Commissars to vote for it. That took some doing.” Despite herself, Kuarta referred to the other Commissars by their heritage.

Jene nodded slightly at that. “Yes, it did. More than I think you realize.” She sighed. “It some ways, it was easier when we first landed. I remember the immunizations—we had been so wrong, Kuarta.” The bitter edge in her voice Kuarta had become so accustomed to faded, as it always did when she remembered the past, especially the past before Renold’s death. “We thought we had prepared ourselves on Ship with our so-called panimmunity. But the argies had an immunization program ready for us. We were in quarantine less than a week, and it was not at all unpleasant. After that, for years, we were welcome guests, given the best linens, so to speak. I remember when we first offered to put our colony equipment—and Ship itself—at the disposal of the government here.” Jene chuckled. “We had colonization equipment that was at least sixty years out of date! I remember the laughter at that,” she said, her eyes looking into the past. “Still, they made room for us, even though we had nothing to offer. Built an entire Dome just for us. Yes, we were welcome here, and we thanked the argies every time we saw one of them.”

“Then things changed,” Kuarta said. “I remember, too. I was ten…or six, I mean, when it really started.”

“Oh, well, it didn’t really start like turning on a switch, dear. It had been building up. How could it not? Shippies began to think of the colony as their home, and argies noticed we weren’t thanking them as much for the very air around us. Resentment on both sides. It was bound to happen, dear.”

“You say that like there was no other way,” Kuarta had said. “But then you fought and fought until you made them appoint you and Perralt Commissars. Why did you do that, if you thought there was nothing that could be done?”

Jene smiled wolfishly. “All right,” she growled, “you caught me. I was younger then, Kuarta, and I thought I could make a difference.”

“Oh, Mother, you’re still young. And you can still make a difference. You just keep fighting for us in the Assembly. I’ll make a difference in other ways. Like with Dolen.”

Jene snorted. “Got me back to the subject at hand, I see.”

Kuarta remembered her mother’s sigh—a sigh that had indicated that not only was her mother willing to let her have her way in this, but that said she had never seriously objected to her daughter’s union with the young argie.

“Go ahead and unify with your partner,” she had said. “You two shouldn’t have to suffer because some Earth scientist built a faster starship engine a hundred years ago.”

Kuarta remembered her mother’s almost hidden pride on the day of their union (“marriage,” Jene had insisted upon calling it) and her grudging acceptance of Kuarta’s choice of partners.

That night, before going to bed together for the first time, Kuarta had taken Dolen outside the Dome, both clad in their Epsilon suits to ward off the toxic chlorine atmosphere, to her father’s grave. Dolen listened for an hour as Kuarta had told him what she knew of Renold Halfner, both from dim memories and from her mother’s stories.

Kuarta was jerked back into the present by the crying of her daughter at the E-stone display. She was sitting on the ground bawling, Epsilon stones scattered around her, while three physically impressive young boys—obviously
Argonaut
-descended—hoved thuggishly nearby.

“What happened?” Kuarta said, scooping her daughter up in her arms and examining her for bumps or cuts.

“The boy hit me,” Yallia said amid sobs, pointing at one of the three.

Kuarta glared at the trio accusingly. “I’m sure he didn’t mean to,” she said, cradling her child in her arms.

“Stupid shippie can’t even stand up on her own,” the boy mumbled, quietly but loudly enough for Kuarta to hear. He and his friends looked to be about ten years old, which meant they were six in New Earth years.

“Come on, Yalli, let’s go see some of the other things here,” Kuarta said, anxious to leave the area. She could see heads beginning to turn her way—
Argonaut
-descended stares could not be far behind.

“Why don’t you go outside and play?” the same boy said, this time making no effort to lower his voice. The other two laughed.

That comment had caused a bit of a stir in the immediate area. Several people, their stature and characteristic jet-black hair identifying them immediately as also
Argonaut
-descended, stopped to watch Kuarta’s reaction to the boy’s comment.