Vale of Stars (2 page)

“I invited Frank and his family to go with us to the Orchard tomorrow for a picnic,” Jene said carefully.

“Oh, that’ll be good,” Renold murmured absently. “You can arrange for time off from the hospital?”

“Sure. I’m owed some back time.”

Renold nodded. “I’ll have to take my finder, of course.”

“I know.” He was always on call, never on duty. As Ship’s most trusted and competent psychotherapist, he dealt with only the most serious cases: ones that threatened Ship itself or some vital part of the mission. He had had more contact with the eighteen members of the Flight Crew than any other colonist. He never talked about them. Jene had stopped asking years ago.

“Kuarta, dear, you have homework to do, yes?” Renold said.

Kuarta nodded.

“Well, go on to your room and start on it, please, dear. I’ll be in shortly to help you if you need it. You can use computer, but no games until you’re done, all right?” He spoke calmly, as if to an adult, as he always did to his daughter. There was very little difference in Renold’s tone no matter the audience.

“Okay, Renold,” she said, addressing him as she always did. It was “Mommy” and “Renold,” even though he was her biological father. Long ago, the discrepancy had bothered Jene, but Renold, as usual, had been able to soothe her. It was of no consequence, he said often, but Jene couldn’t help but wonder if there was even the smallest bit of regret behind his words.

Kuarta disappeared into her section of the tiny apartment. Fewer than sixty square meters of space were allotted per person in Ship. It was claustrophobic, even if one had lived their entire life on board, as all Gens had since Gen One. The human need for open spaces could not be entirely bred out or conditioned away. It was why Renold and his lesser colleagues were so valuable—technicians kept the machinery operational, but Renold kept the technicians themselves operational.

“Why the orchard, dear?” Renold said, clearing the table.

“Oh, I don’t know. I just thought.…”

“Since we’ll be landing in four months, you want to get Kuarta used to openness?”

“I guess that’s it.”

“I see,” he said, then fell silent, like he always did. He would wait her out.

“It’s not going to work, is it?” Jene said finally.

“What? Trying to acclimate Gen Five to life planetbound? Or the mission itself?”

“I wonder if those aren’t the same thing.”

“Hmm. Good point.”

Jene handed her husband the rest of the tableware. “Frank talked about radiation today.”

Renold stopped wiping down the dishes. “Oh?”

“Don’t you ever wonder why Kuarta came out the way she did?”

“We’ve talked about this before, dear. You cannot feel guilty about this. You’re genetically pure, and so am I. You’ve told me time and time again that we escaped radiation damage through chance.”

“Is that why you married me?” As soon as she uttered the words, she looked away. “I’m sorry, I....”

“Do you think that?” Calmly. Jene knew he would not allow himself to grow angry at the accusation.

It was useless trying to lie. “Sometimes.”

“Well, it isn’t true. I married you because I fell in love with you and I wanted to create a family with you.” He spoke matter-of-factly, as if he were discussing the meal they had just eaten. “Frank bothers you, doesn’t he?”

“Well, yes. Wendy is Gen Five too. I think he’s angry at us.”

“I thought Wendy only has minor, inconsequential mutations.”

“Doesn’t matter. You’ve seen the way Frank watches Wendy and Kuarta play together. You’re an analyst—don’t tell me you can’t read him.”

“Yes, I can.”

“Frank wants to know why his kid isn’t perfect like ours, doesn’t he. And there’s no goddamn answer!” Jene slammed her fist down on the small counter. One of the dessert plates clattered to the floor, the unbreakable plastic bouncing noisily off the tile.

“The orchard tomorrow, then,” Renold said evenly, picking up the plate and wiping it down.

Jene looked at him for a long moment, wanting to speak, or more accurately, wanting him to do something, feel something. He was infuriatingly cold as he continued the chores. Jene knew it wasn’t his fault—it was a combination of his personality and his training. She just wished—fruitlessly, she knew—that with her, at least, he could abandon control.

*   *   *

The orchard was beautiful. Frank, his wife, Lena, and their daughter, Wendy, had traveled there with the Halfners on the bicycles that the inhabitants of Ship used for nearly all long-range personal transportation. There were, of course, ground vehicles for emergencies and freight platforms for bulk cargo, but when people needed to travel even long distances, they walked or rode bicycles.

Gil Tannassarian, who ran the orchard, was a kindly Gen Three well-known to Jene. He smiled at her and her five companions as they dismounted and parked the bicycles in their racks in front of the orchard. Gil was leaning his elbows on a simulated woodbeam fence that surrounded the acerage of the orchard and beaming at his visitors.

“Jene! How are you, my girl?” Gil had promised he would never forget the life-saving procedure Jene had performed on his Gen Five granddaugter Millicent, who had had severe heart defects. Millicent had pulled through despite all predictions and was now about Kuarta’s age.

“I’m good, Gil.” She smiled back. She knew the rumors: that the old Gen Three had been a candidate for Flight Crew in his youth but had been rejected during his final psych tests. People said (out of his hearing, of course) that something had happened to him up there on the Flight Deck that he had never talked about. He had not been the same since and had started working at the orchard shortly thereafter. He became the custodian of the orchard a few years after that when the previous caretaker had died. Renold, though never directly addressing the rumors, had dismissed them as impossible and irresponsible. No one, he had said, was assigned to Flight Crew. He would not elaborate on this cryptic remark, and over the years Jene had almost stopped wondering about it.

Gil had met the Mussards before as well, and after a few pleasantries with them, turned back to Jene.

“I’ve checked your recreation ration status, Doctor,” he said with a touch of formality tinged with embarrassment, “and you have more than enough accrued for a whole day here. The Mussards, though….” He did not look at them. Such rationing was necessary in Ship—recreational resources such as the orchard were doled out by the Council in a strict regimen. The Halfners, as important medical personnel, received a greater allowance than Frank and his family. It was an arrangement that Jene had never liked.

Jene kept her eyes away from Frank as she muttered to Gil, “Take it out of ours, Gil.”

Had Gil Tanassarian followed procedure, he would have had to refuse Jene’s offer. Ration sharing was not allowed for any reason. The Council had decided such activity would result in class warfare. But Gil was a man of compassion. He looked down at the dirt and kicked it to and fro a bit.

“Sure, Jene. I’ll make it work somehow.” He looked up at the Mussards and found Wendy’s wide eyes. Gil smiled down at her and swung the gate open. “You folks have a good time.”

Kuarta and Wendy had thanked him hurriedly and dashed off down the path into the woods. Kuarta stopped on her way to the nearest tree and looked back at the adults quizzically, as if she suspected something had happened back at the gate that she did not understand. For a moment, she appeared to be preparing to speak, but the moment passed and she hurried to join her friend in the sunrod-dappled fields of the orchard.

The adults strolled behind them, talking pointedly of nothing in particular. There was an almost tangible feeling of tension, a curtain that could be felt but not seen, separating the two families. There was no money in Ship, but ration privileges served the same purpose. There were no aristocrats, but there was a Council that had grown increasingly aloof. Ship society had been carefully engineered to near-perfect socialism, but recently, Jene had noticed a subtle stratification. She could not help but realize that her place was uncomfortably high in the almost-invisible hierarchy of Ship’s social classes.

 The pair of children, with their attendant parents in tow, soon arrived at a clearing, where the adults spread out their picnic supplies and settled down for a leisurely meal.

“Frank tells me you think you’ll be ready with the immunizations soon,” Lena said when the families had finished eating.

“Yes, I think so,” Jene answered. “It’s going very smoothly.”

“Who’s still left?” Frank asked, and Jene thought she could detect tension in the question.

“Just some people who had some unusual blood chemistry. The vaccines have to be individually tailored, you know.”

“Any Flight Crew?”

Jene stared at him before answering. “No, they refused to be immunized.”

“What?” Frank and Lena asked almost simultaneously.

“We asked for their blood chemistry when we began the project. At first, they refused to send us anything, then they told us that immunization was not necessary for them.”

“Did they say why?” Frank leaned forward.

“Nothing. But we’re not going to force it on them. They’ve always been able to take care of themselves”—she cast an involuntary glance at Renold, who sat impassively nearby—“and we assume they will do so in this case as well.”

There was considerable silence before Lena found her voice. For generations, Flight Crew had been a forgotten element of Ship life—now, four months from their destination and with Ship beginning its deceleration, the Flight Crew had become the most important group in Ship. Their welfare was immutably wedded to the welfare of every inhabitant of Ship.

“What about the Council?” Lena asked.

“We did them first,” Jene answered, not bothering to hide the venom in her voice.

“Why?” Frank asked.

“It was at their request.”

Lene snorted. “Their order, you mean. They got the first shots? Do they think they are better than we are down here in Ship?”

Jene shrugged. She did not trust herself to speak; she had thought the same thing months ago when the directive from Council had come down. If she started talking about it, she would undoubtedly lose control of her bitterness, and she did not want Kuarta to see that. Kuarta did not need to see her mother openly challenge the supreme authority in Ship.

“What if we run out of time or vaccine?” Lena asked, the beginnings of panic entering her voice. “What if you have to hurry and you miss someone?”

Jene tried to smile reassuringly. “We’re not going to miss anyone. Everyone gets immunized. Panimmunity for all—everyone immunized against everything we know of and lots that we don’t.”

“Everyone?” Frank asked.

“Yes.”

“Even Bobby Yancey?”

Jene gasped quietly and felt her eyes widen. Lena looked away. Renold swiveled his head to stare thoughtfully at Frank. Jene could almost feel her husband’s intellect enter the conversation and begin to analyze. But he would stay on the edges.

“Yes, even Bobby. Are you suggesting—?”

“Yes!” Lena stood up suddenly. “Oh, Jene, you know us. We’re not bad folks. But suppose there’s a shortage of panimmunity vaccine. Are you saying that the Council wasn’t treated first just in case we ran out? And are you saying that Bobby should be considered as important as…well, us?”

Jene stared at Lena in cold horror. Yes, she had known Frank and Lena for years—they had housed together for four years, ever since both families had grown to three persons each. Although she knew Frank and Lena did not share all her ideological views on life, she had never thought the two families were this different. The Council had hinted that perhaps the immunization schedule should prefer the genetically strong first, but their reasoning had been that those without unusual defects would be easier to immunize in any case and could be taken care of quickly, leaving more time to deal with the unusual cases. Jene had been skeptical as to the sincerity of the Council’s motives, but as there had been no sign of trouble with the vaccination program, she had agreed to treat the Council first. She had not anticipated the effects of the decision on other inhabitants of Ship—the Council had not kept their request secret. Jene scowled as a thought occurred to her.

“Do you think our family is more important than yours, Lena?” Renold’s calm, cold, calculating voice drifted across the blanket.

Lena’s eyes darted at Renold, then to Jene, then to the ground. Frank looked away. Jene knew what her husband was analyzing now—their body language and posture answered for them. Conversations over the years replayed themselves in Jene’s head—talks with Frank about Wendy, Lena’s eyes focusing intently on Kuarta whenever the two were together—and Jene knew what her husband was concluding. Frank and Lena considered themselves in a lower caste from the Halfners.

“I think that it doesn’t matter what we think,” Frank said, his eyes locked on the remnants of his lunch before him. “We all know what’s going to happen when we make planetfall.”

Jene glanced at Renold. He seemed to be deep in thought. She knew that he would not debate with Frank. She turned to Frank again, but found she had nothing to say.

Frank continued. “We may not like what the Council is doing now. Hell, I know I don’t. But how much worse is it going to be in four months? Could we really expect total equality? Would that even be fair?”

Jene snorted. “Total equality isn’t fair, Frank?”

“You know what I mean,” he said. He brought his eyes up and started at her for a long moment.

Jene did know what he meant. Frank was not stupid; he could sense what was coming and what it might mean for his daughter. He was perfectly willing to support the notion of a social hierarchy that placed the Council at the peak and others in descending order determined by their genetic health. Such a scheme would not put his family at the top, but it would put Wendy, with her minor genetic defects, closer to the apex than the base. If some arbitrary line were to be drawn, separating society into those who would live and those who would not, Frank intended his family to be on the correct side.