“Why?”
“Because he left me behind.” Her voice is so quiet that I can hardly hear her over the waves that are sucking greedily at our legs. “Stupid, stubborn Watsons. Always thinking you can do everything alone. If I’d been with you guys, if there’d been three of us instead of two, maybe . . . He didn’t have to die.”
I can almost see the what if unspooling like a movie in my head. The three of us working together in the engine room. Getting the clamps released thirty seconds earlier. The airlock doors slamming, with all three of us safely back in the corridor.
Teddy standing next to me on this beach.
But that’s not the only what if I see.
“What if you came with us and something else went wrong?” I say. “What if one of the clamps was stuck or the engine blew up a few seconds earlier or the hull breach was a meter to the left and we couldn’t get through the access hatch? If we’d failed, and you had been with us, then Beth and Chris and Miguel and all those people in their insulated-sleep crates on the Wagon would have died too.”
Leela nods in a whatever sort of way that both accepts and dismisses my point.
“I didn’t say it was reasonable. I said I was angry. There’s a difference.” She gets a complicated look on her face then, somewhere between respect, pity, and irritation. “I’d never have thought to use explosive decompression to blow the engine module clear of the ship. Or to steal a flex from a phytoraptor nest. My brain doesn’t work that way. I’m glad. It seems . . . stressful.”
It isn’t an apology. Not really. It’s an acknowledgment. Understanding.
The whomp whomp whomp of a flyer’s rotors overcomes the roar of the ocean.
“Mom’s coming,” I say. I thought I’d feel more relieved than this. I mean, I’m glad we’re going back to the Landing, where it’s safe. But our settlement was built on lies and ethical choices that I’ve been taught my whole life are wrong. Choices made by people I love and respect. Choices made by my mother.
And now I have to ask her why.
Fifteen
Dr. Howard is waiting for us when we touch down on the airfield. Chris runs down the ramp and hurls himself into his father’s arms. They stand there, clinging to each other for a long time. Then Dr. Howard leads Chris away.
Once they’re gone, Doc takes Jay and Leela to medical, and Beth has to explain the dangers of Stage Three to the rest of the botany team. That leaves me to introduce Tarn to Mom and Dad. After they welcome him to the Landing, Mom asks him to wait in an empty office in Ground Control while they debrief me. I have to repeat myself a lot, because my parents are constantly being interrupted by calls and texts from Sarge. He’s scrambling a salvage crew to the crash site.
Sending people back to the phytoraptor-infested valley is a risk, but we can’t start work on a new shuttle until we recycle the wreckage. Building the new shuttle can’t wait. According to Chief Penny’s logs, she repaired the superluminal transponder on her last, ill-fated trip to the Pioneer, but apparently we still can’t connect with Earth. Mom urgently needs to report our contact with the Sorrow and the phytoraptors to Central Command, so we need to get back up to the ship and fix whatever is wrong with the transponder.
After they’re finished with me, Mom suggests that I go to medical so Doc can check me out while she and Dad talk to Tarn. I’m covered in cuts and bruises, but I decide to take a shower first. I tell myself it’s because I smell, but tears start running down my face the moment I step into the cubicle and turn on the water. My knees fold under me and I slide down the wall, weeping.
I cry for a long time. For Miguel. For Chief Penny. For all the people we’ve lost in the last three days. I cry until my head feels thick and my throat feels raw, and it hardly makes a dent in the grief. Still, I feel lighter now. Empty. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.
I wash my hair and scrub days of dirt and sweat from my skin. Then I switch the water to cold and turn my face into the spray for a full minute, cooling my tear-swollen eyes.
Once I’m dressed, I realize that I’m starving. I decide to grab some food before I go to medical. Doc is busy with Jay and Leela anyway, and physically I feel fine despite my various abrasions. Actually, I feel better than fine. It’s like someone turned up the O² mix on the whole planet. Maybe I’m still coasting on the leftover adrenaline from averting the apocalypse while almost getting eaten alive.
Town square is mostly empty except for Mrs. Divekar and the little kids, who are helping to transplant a pair of the fido trees from the river to the garden plots in front of Ground Control.
Their giggles catch at my memory, pulling up a half-forgotten rainy afternoon when I was ten, Chris was six, and Teddy and Miguel were twelve. They took turns putting Chris on their shoulders and stomping around with his oversized rain poncho covering their heads, pretending he was a giant. We thought it was hilarious. My face hurt from laughing so hard.
At one point Chris and Miguel fell into the lake and got completely drenched. Chris started crying, but Miguel had him laughing again in no time. Miguel never let anyone feel bad for too long if he could help it. That’s what made him a good doctor. Now he’s gone. Evaporated into memory and smashed bones and broken skin.
I don’t want to start crying again, so I stop thinking and go into the mess hall.
Tarn is standing by the window, watching the children in the square through the blindfold that shields his eyes from the daylight. I expected him to insist on returning to the Solace once we were safe, but to my surprise, he accepted Mom’s invitation to come to the Landing. I didn’t expect to find him here. Mom had several hours’ worth of questions for me, and she must have had at least as many for Tarn.
“Hello, Joanna,” he says as I join him at the window.
“I thought you were with my parents,” I say.
“Sadly, I could not answer most of your mother’s questions,” Tarn says. “The decision to share that information belongs to the Followed. Not to me.”
“I’m sure Mom understood,” I say.
“She was disappointed,” Tarn says. “But she accepted my reservations.” He gestures to Dr. Kao. “And Mohan Kao has been very kind. They have both attempted to make me comfortable.”
“But you aren’t?” I ask, hearing what he isn’t saying.
Tarn covers his face with his palms in. “I am unsettled,” he says. “I feel as though your world has already wrapped itself around mine, and I can no longer see the world as it was.”
I look out the window to where the trees are being planted in the garden. The scene is totally different when I imagine what it looks like through his eyes. A gaggle of alien children, uprooting the wildlife.
“They didn’t mean any harm, moving the trees. I can tell them to—”
“No,” Tarn says. “It is lovely. It reminds me of the gardens where my father labored when I was still pouchborne.”
“Oh,” I say. “Okay.”
“It is not this place that disturbs me; it is the things I have learned on the journey that led me here. The things your people know. The ideas you have. . . . You spoke to the Beast with your hands, and it spoke back to you.”
“Is that a bad thing?” I say.
Tarn covers his face with his hands again, this time with his palms out so I can see the delicate veins of light that run up his fingers. “You cannot understand, Joanna. These creatures are like the cold and the rot and the sun. A force of nature that cannot be reasoned with or controlled. But you spoke to one of them. It spoke to you. That means that the Beasts cannot be what I know them to be. And it makes me feel as though I am not what I know myself to be either.”
“Isn’t it better that they aren’t an unstoppable force?” I say. “If we can talk to them, maybe we can help you make peace.”
“Can there be peace between the hunter and the hunted?”
“Tarn, you’re wearing armor made of phytoraptor skin,” I say. “You hunt each other.”
He turns to stare at me. W
e’re close enough that I can see his round, black eyes through the thin blindfold. “Humans make the truth feel like water slipping through my fingers. I don’t like it.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Dr. Kao interjects. We both look up to see him at the door with Doc. “Dr. Divekar is here to see you, Tarn. He’s thrilled that you’re willing to discuss Sorrow healing techniques with him.”
“Of course,” Tarn says. “If you will excuse me, Joanna.”
Doc and Tarn leave.
Dr. Kao makes me a bowl of beans and rice and then grabs a rag and starts wiping down tables. He doesn’t ask if I want to talk, but the invitation to spill my guts is clear. I sort of want to, but most of what I’m worried about is stuff I’m not supposed to know, and Dr. Kao isn’t supposed to know either. The only person I could talk to about it is Mom. And I don’t want to talk to Mom. Not yet.
I take my food outside and sit by the cold fire pits so I can watch the kids play while I eat. Tarn said this looked like a Sorrow garden. I wonder if some of the grasses and ferns that Mrs. Divekar and the kids planted around the fido trees are food crops for the Sorrow. I hope Tarn will stay here long enough to teach us about them.
“Joey?”
I turn to see Chris standing behind me. He’s wearing a clean thermal and cargo pants with a new utility harness. The shoulders of his shirt are damp, and I can see water still dripping down the back of his neck from his wet curls. It drives the chief nuts when he doesn’t bother to dry his hair after a shower. Drove. It drove the chief nuts. The past tense makes the back of my throat ache with a sudden surge of grief. She’ll never remind Chris to dry his hair again. It’s a stupid, tiny thing. It makes me want to weep.
“Hey,” I say, squeezing the words past my looming tears. “Where’d you get to?”
“Shower,” he says, in an obviously tone of voice. Then he adds quietly, “Dad and I were talking to Dr. Kao before that.”
I nod, cautious. I feel like Chris is hollow glass vibrating at a frequency that’s going to make him shatter if he doesn’t relax.
“Dr. Kao isn’t nearly as annoying as you’d think,” I say, carefully keeping my voice light. “Not like the ISA HQ wonks they made me see back on Earth.”
“I guess,” Chris says, rocking from toe to heel like he’s having trouble standing still.
“You hungry?” I say.
“No,” he says. “I don’t . . . Sarge went back to the nest to get Miguel. And they’re coming . . . the flyer is coming back, and I thought . . .”
“Let me recycle this,” I say, gesturing to my bowl and spoon as I stand up. “Then we’ll go wait for them.”
We walk to the airfield in silence. Night is starting to fall. The sun has almost disappeared behind the Diamond Range, and the mountains’ dusk light show is fading. I can just pick out the flashing red and white beacon lights on the flyer’s wings in the distance.
The airfield still isn’t paved, but the stiff Tau grasses have been mowed short and marked off with a crosshatched square to make a landing pad for the flyers.
Chris says, “It’s my fault. What happened to Miguel is my fault.”
“No, it isn’t,” I say. “None of this is your fault. I know it can feel—”
“This isn’t like the way you feel guilty about Teddy,” Chris says. “I’m not just saying it’s my fault because I feel guilty that Miguel died and I didn’t. It’s my fault that he’s dead.” Before I can contradict him again, Chris pulls something shiny from his pocket and thrusts it into my hand. It’s a metallic starburst with stringy brown stuff clinging to its points.
“Is this one of your mom’s Scout badges?” I say.
He nods. “I saw . . .” He trails off on a gasp, like the words are too heavy. Then he tries again. “That phytoraptor. The one I killed? Remember how they had a bunch of shiny crap wound into their tendrils?”
Abruptly, I know what he’s trying to tell me. I don’t want to, but I do.
“Oh, Chris.”
He sucks in a dry sob. “I saw Mom’s EVA badge in their tendrils and I knew, I knew, I knew they must have killed her. They killed her and took her badge, and there they were, just waking up, and I had Ord’s knife and . . . It just happened.” He stares down at his hands like they belong to someone else. “I didn’t . . . I don’t feel like I decided to do it. I know that’s wrong. I am responsible for my own actions. I know that. But it didn’t feel that way. It just happened. And then the raptor screamed and they all woke up and Jay got hurt and . . . Miguel. And it’s my fault.”
I try to snatch the horrified expression back before Chris sees it, but I’m not fast enough.
The pain in his face twists into a sharp, bitter point. “See?” he says. “Dr. Kao can’t help me. Nobody can. Nobody will want to.”
“That’s not true,” I start to say, but a voice interrupts me.
“Hello, my dears.” I turn to find Miguel’s moms walking toward us. Dr. Vega is part of the botany team. She has a protective arm around her wife, Alejandra, who is one of our architectural designers. Alejandra tries to smile at us, but the half-formed expression melts into tears instead.
Chris bolts.
I look after him, then back at Dr. Vega’s and Alejandra’s sad, concerned faces.
“Oh my,” Dr. Vega says. “Poor little thing. And after losing the chief.”
I nod. I don’t trust my voice yet. I feel like I should go after Chris, but I can’t. I’m too angry. I don’t know if I’ve ever been this angry. I’m not angry at him. I’m angry at all of us. At this place. At the ISA. At all of the lies and assumptions and mistakes that led to Chris pulling out that knife. My mistakes. He’s just a kid. I should have insisted that he stay on the cliffs with Miguel. And Jay and I definitely should have taken that knife from him. Of course, Ord shouldn’t have given it to him in the first place. And our parents shouldn’t have brought us to Tau. So many wrongs. I wish I didn’t know about any of them. But I do.
So what am I going to do about it?
The roar of the flyer’s rotors crescendos as it settles on the airfield grass. Miguel’s mothers walk toward it as the ramp unfolds. I don’t. My body feels like poured concrete.
Sarge guides a float cart bearing a black body bag down the ramp.
It looks so small.
My stomach heaves as I try not to imagine how little is left of Miguel.
Miguel’s moms help Sarge guide the float cart across the airfield and into the Landing. I could help. I should.
I can’t.
Instead, I watch the lights of the Landing come up and the rainbow sparkle of the Diamond Range die as the night gets thicker and darker. I don’t realize how cold I am until Mom slips her hand into mine. The warmth of her skin makes me break out in gooseflesh all over.
“Come on,” she says, tugging me back toward the Landing.
I hang on to her hand as we walk across the airfield. The floodlights throw shadows down her face, highlighting creases that weren’t there two days ago. She looks like she’s aged years.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I say.
“For what?” she says.
“Sneaking out?” I say. “Accidentally making First Contact with extraterrestrials? I can keep going . . .”
She huffs a little laugh. “I’m not sorry. It was the longest thirty-four hours of my life, not knowing where you and Beth were or what was happening to you. But if you hadn’t gone, we would have initiated Stage Three this morning. We wouldn’t have known it was a problem until it was far, far too late. You and your sister stopped us from causing an ecological disaster.” She squeezes my hand. “Besides, we raised you this way. We have no one to blame but ourselves.”
She’s right. Mom and Dad raised us to ask questions and challenge authority. Dad used to joke that Mom was promoted to commander because her superiors got tired of arguing with her. She would never have just accepted an order she didn’t believe in.
I stop walking. “Why didn’t you resign?”
&nb
sp; “I need more context to answer that question,” Mom says, but she doesn’t sound surprised that I’m asking it.
“I know the ISA edited the Sorrow and the phytoraptors out of the survey report, but you had access to the original. You knew they were here.”
“Yes, I did,” Mom says.
“Then why did we come?” The words explode out of me. “You helped write the charter. You and Dad fought to include the rules against settling occupied planets. So when the ISA decided to violate those rules, why didn’t you resign?”
Mom sucks in a long breath and lets it out slowly, watching it mist in the chilly air between us. Then she nods, like she’s just finished a debate inside her head.
She looks me in the eye. “Earth’s ecosystem is on the brink of total collapse.”
“I know,” I say. “But the Earth Restoration Project is repairing that. Isn’t it?”
She nods. “It is, to a point. But it doesn’t matter how well the ERP’s nanoscrubbers and ocean filtration systems work. Even if we completely restore the climate and the oceans, the current human population is unsustainable. We need to reduce it by thirty percent before 2165, or the ecosystem will collapse despite all of our efforts. That means we have roughly fifty years to move three billion people.”
“That’s impossible,” I say. “We can’t even build enough ships to do that in fifty years.”
“I know,” Mom says, grim. “But we’re going to move as many people as we can. We have to try. That’s why teams were sent to Tau and to Proxima Centauri b, despite the fact that neither world is . . . ideal.”
Abruptly, I understand what Tarn meant about humans making the truth feel like water running through his fingers.
“Pel is right,” I say. “We’re here to steal their planet.”
“Share,” Mom says. “When we came here, we planned to make peaceful First Contact with the Sorrow and negotiate a treaty that would allow us to share Tau with them. Obviously, that’s going to be a little more complicated than we hoped, but it’s the best chance for the human race.”
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