Vale of Stars (3 page)

Jene fought the impulse to argue with him. She liked Frank and tolerated his wife. There was no need to prove to them that no line needed to be drawn at all. They would come to that conclusion on their own, as would the Council and the rest of Ship.

“Well, we’ve all got busy days tomorrow. I think we’d better get back,” Jene finally said with false enthusiasm that none of the others cared to question. The families packed up, called their children, and headed back to their home the way they had come. Jene felt a twinge of regret that Kuarta would not be going on a worldwalk after all.

The trip back was a silent one. When the two families parted to their separate floors, the Halfners above their friends, Jene wanted to speak but did not know the words. She was sure her husband did.

Later that night, when the sunrod had dimmed and the lights from the settlements above twinkled vaguely like stars she had seen in Ship’s record vids, Jene was tucking Kuarta in to bed. Her daughter looked up at her thoughtfully and asked, “Mommy? Why does Uncle Frank not like me?”

“Why do you say that, sweetie?”

“He looks at me and frowns.”

“Oh, dear, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t like you. He’s just worried.”

“How come?”

“Well, it’s his work. Sometimes his work worries him.”

“Oh.” Kuarta digested this, and Jene kissed her.

“Now sweet dreams, little one. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Okay. Mommy?”

“Yes?”

“Maybe we can give Uncle Frank a present tomorrow so he will not be worried.”

Jene smiled to cover up her real feelings. “Sure, honey. Now go to sleep.”

“Push one more time, Ute,” Jene said. “I see her head. One more push and she’ll be out.”

Ute bore down again, her face contorted, and delivered her daughter.

Jene was a professional. She had delivered dozens of babies and treated hundreds of patients. Furthermore, she had known from numerous prenatal exams that Ute’s daughter would have gross anatomical malformations and major genetic disorders. Jene had performed four in vitro surgeries on the developing fetus and had gotten a good look at what it would become. Even so, Jene could not totally suppress a slight shudder—a tremor that shook her shoulders and one which she hoped the loose-fitting scrubs hid—when she saw the end product of nine months of gestation.

Jene expertly cut the umbilical and passed the baby to Tym, her assistant, who suctioned out the child’s mouth and malformed nasal passages. Jene forced herself to watch for a moment, then turned away, though not before she caught sight of the baby’s sole many-fingered hand reaching up towards Tym. She concentrated on the afterbirth instead. She harvested it carefully and passed it to another assistant from Ecological Engineering. The placenta would be put to good use in Ship’s botanical store.

“How is she?” Ute asked weakly. Her partner, Howard, stood near her, holding her hand, looking balefully at Jene.

Jene glanced at Tym. He gave a slight shake of his head.

“We’ll put her in neonatal intensive care immediately,” Jene said. “She’s got an excellent chance.”

“But how is she?” Howard asked. Jene knew what he meant. The question could have annoyed her. They had known for months that the baby was going to have severe malformations. Their previous son, Howard, Jr., had been a hemophiliac with practically no immune system. He had been in and out of Children’s Crèche all his young life.

But it was not in Jene to be angry at them for something not their fault. The cosmos had conspired against these people, inflicting upon them, their parents, and their grandparents untold numbers of neutrons that sabotaged the reproductive process. And Ute and Harold had chosen to try to defy the cosmos. Their baby was the result. Ship had thick shielding, but one hundred years at one-tenth the speed of light meant cosmic radiation. Those genetic defects had increased despite careful outbreeding programs.

Tym stopped briefly on his way out with the baby in the newborn support tank so Ute and Harold could see her. One look and they both paled. Ute buried her head in her partner’s chest and sobbed.

Jene nodded to Tym, and he continued out. Jene followed him with her eyes and was startled to see one of the white-suited members of the Governance Council in the doorway. It was Ernst Sorensen—one of the Council’s lackeys.

Tym had to push the tank past him, and the Councilman got a good glimpse of what was inside. Sorensen did not hide his disgust at the sight of the baby.

“Excuse me, Mr. Sorensen,” Jene said testily, “but this is a private room. If you’ll wait outside, we’ll be—”

“When you’re finished,” Sorensen said, and left. Jene had dealt with the man often enough to understand his meaning. She did not hurry to complete Ute’s exam.

“As soon as she’s settled, I’ll come back to tell you how she’s doing. You can see her then,” Jene said, and gently stroked Ute’s sweat-soaked hair once, twice. She lingered with the family for a moment, then left to meet with Sorensen.

He was leaning against a wall in the small waiting room, arms crossed in front of him. He straightened when he saw Jene.

“What do you want?” Jene asked, suddenly tired. She was in no mood to deal with the Council—especially not their sleek attack dog.

“The Council meets today. Special session. Wants to talk to you.”

“Me? What for?”

“Not the inoculation progress.”

“Then what?”

Sorensen smiled. “They’ll let you know. Council Chambers at seven,” he said, and started past her.

“The Council can’t just order me to appear before them at their convenience.”

“Not an order.”

“Look, Sorensen, enough guessing games. What is the meeting about and why should I go?”

“Make sure you take care of that…
baby
…first. Seven tonight in chambers.” And he strode away. Jene started to call after him again, but stopped herself. Sorensen was clearly not going to tell her any more, and she did not feel inclined to talk to him. She had not missed his pointed emphasis on the word “baby” and she seethed at it.

*   *   *

“How’d it go?” Doctor Werner asked when Jene joined him at one of the tables in the hospital cafeteria.

“The procedure was fine.”

Werner looked up from his meal. “Something the matter?”

Jene did not answer for a moment, then glanced guiltily at him. “Sorry, Oskar. Yes, something’s wrong. Ernst Sorensen came to tell me the Council wants to see me tonight.”

“Up in the core?”

“Yes.”

Werner shook his head. “Your muscles are going to turn to goo. The core will ‘sap your strength and vigor required to forge a new home for your children.’” His voice deepened as he quoted Ilene Shapiro’s famous speech of seventy-four years before when Ship had been debating building recreation areas in the null-g center of the great cylinder. Shapiro’s viewpoint had won out—the central core now contained only the computer mainframe, the power plant, the Council Chambers (with its attendant police department) and the Flight Deck. This latter facility comprised the vast majority of the core, where the seldom-discussed and never-seen Flight Crew carried out their duties alone.

Werner speared a triangular piece of his yeast patty. “What’s it about?”

“I can only guess.” Jene stared at her peas, pushing them around aimlessly with her fork.

“I told you,” Werner said, his voice muffled momentarily as he finished chewing his yeast patty, “you shouldn’t be so free with your criticism of the Council.”

Jene looked up at him. “Why not?”

Werner stared gravely at her before drawing his knife slowly across his throat in the age-old gesture of sudden death. He noisily scraped his tongue along the sides of his mouth as he did so to complete the metaphor.

Jene laughed.

Werner stopped mid-sound. He turned the knife towards Jene and stabbed the air as he said, “You mark my words, young Doctor Halfner: you’re going to end up in the hydroponics vats someday.”

“Aren’t we all, Oskar?”

Werner blinked in surprise. “Yes, I suppose that’s true. Comforting to know that we’ll still be useful even after our deaths. Even if we weren’t useful in life.”

Jene’s smile faded. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Oskar’s eyes widened at the sudden anger in her voice. “Huh? I meant that—”

“You asked me about Ute’s daughter. You knew the baby was going to be deformed. Are you trying to tell me she should be recycled? Now? Maybe we should both go to neonatal care and shuttle her up to the vats immediately.”

Werner grimaced. “Stop it, Doctor. You know that’s not what I meant. I think we should treat the Class D’s for as long as we’re able.”

“Don’t call them that.”

“What?”

“Class D’s.” She had argued against the terminology when it was first put forward a few years ago to describe and categorize newborn genetic status. Class D was the highest level of deformity. “It’s a baby, not a label,” she added, then glared at him.

Werner did not look at her as he put his silverware back on his tray with a loud rattle. “I have to go. I’ve got a procedure soon.” He stood up.

Jene knew she had caused a major breach of etiquette by insulting him, but she could not bring herself to utter an apology. She was not sorry, and all Ship’s unspoken rules of politeness could not make her say she was.

*   *   *

The shuttle trip to the central core was uneventful and brief. She knew that the Council Chambers were located behind the sunrod on one end of the core, though she did not know if it was the front or the back of Ship. She also knew that the Panoptikon was located in the core. The thought took her back to the last time she had visited the core fourteen years ago. She had gone to listen to her grandfather argue, one last time, for the Council to return to the ground-level and govern from there.

“You have operated in this chamber for a year now,” she remembered him saying, “and in that time, you have moved the constabulary up here and increased its staff from three officers to thirty-one. Why?”

Jene had not listened to the Council’s answer—she had been only twelve years old and had venerated her grandfather.  The argument soon left her behind as her grandfather and the Council argued esoteric points she could not follow. Only one thing had struck her. Towards the end, when it was clear the Council was not going to move, her grandfather had said, “This Council and its Panoptikon will begin the end of the happy egalitarian paradise we have enjoyed for nearly ninety years. I am glad I will not be alive to suffer through what you have done.”

He had died a few weeks later. Jene had looked up the word “Panoptikon” – the all seeing watchtower – and had taken to using it as a tribute to her grandfather whenever she referred to the constabulary. The word had taken root and was now the common term for the police facility.

Jene wiped her eyes as the shuttle entered the tiny port within the sunrod’s housing. The craft’s polarized windows cleared instantly when the shuttle passed the outer ring of the sunrod and was, effectively, behind the sun. It was early evening, and although the sunrod was dim, at such close range the mammoth banks of light would still blind.

The queer sensation of weightlessness had not suited her fourteen years ago, nor did it now. She debarked from the shuttle and entered the Council antechamber in ill humor, to find Sorensen there, waiting for her. His oyster-white uniform blended in almost completely with the white simulated-marble interior. For a split second, Jene imagined him as a disembodied face floating in the room.

“On time,” he mumbled.

“Let’s get this started so I can get back home.”

Sorensen shrugged and pushed off the wall where he had been hovering. Jene followed, clumsily. Sorensen opened an irising door and entered a larger room. Jene collided with the wall near the door and had to scrape her way towards the opening. She fumbled her way into the Council Chamber and gasped.

Almost the entire chamber was glass: she could see the expanse of Ship from her vantage point. The mere turning of her head was enough to survey her entire world. She could easily make out people, livestock, machinery, everything.

“Breathtaking, is it not?” one of the Councilmen said pleasantly, swimming gracefully over to her. “I find myself looking down all the time.”

Jene knew the voice. It was Benj Arnson, de facto head of the Council. His had been the hand behind the changes in Ship. He was a Gen Three, and a young one at that—only some twenty years older than Jene. He floated next to her, to all appearances completely at ease in the weightless environment. He wore the same jumpsuit-uniform as the others, but something about his bearing gave his suit a military appearance.

“I imagine so.” Jene tore her eyes from the ground below and looked at Arnson. “Perhaps you should visit us down there, Councilman.”

It was a credit to the man that he managed to smile disarmingly at the barb. He spent most of his time in the central core now, as did many of the Council. “Well. I am glad you decided to visit
us
, Doctor. But I am sure you would like to know why we have invited you here. If you’d like to start, please,” he indicated the rest of the Council, and began introductions. They weren’t necessary—Jene knew all five Councilmembers, as did the entire Ship. But Arnson was nothing if not smooth.

“Councilmembers, this is Doctor Jene Halfner, director of medicine at Balgeti Hospital. You may recall her grandfather, Orson Halfner, who worked with Ship’s Council until his death some years ago.”

Jene started at the comment. Her grandfather had not worked with the Council—he had opposed virtually every new program they had put forward. It was a desecration of his memory to remark on a collaboration that had never existed. Jene suddenly felt ashamed she had accepted the invitation to come here.

Arnson addressed the rest of the Council, who were hovering near what must have been their personal stations. Jene saw electronic clipboards floating near the Councilmembers. “No doubt Doctor Halfner wishes us to conduct our business with her quickly, so let us begin. Doctor Halfner,” Arnson said, pivoting in air to face her, “I understand there was a birth today.”