by Sean O'Brien
“No. We refused. Our charge was to take Ship safely to the third planet of the Epsilon Eridani system, and we would not obey any order that placed the mission in jeopardy.”
“So he tried to take it public before he was ready.”
“And you were there to meet him. So you see, we did not need to interfere.”
Jene shuddered. “But the conflict! The war—all those deaths. They didn’t need to happen.”
“Yes, they did, Jene. You saved more people than you could possibly have known. Arnson would have cooperated with Tann to exterminate hundreds, even thousands of Odyssey colonists in orbit or even on the planet. Under his leadership, the colonists would have willingly, but unknowingly, walked into death. Arnson would have been the shepherd leading his flock to the slaughterhouse. Tann’s slaughterhouse. But for you.”
Redemption did not come easily to Jene. She fought it off as desperately as she had sought it for twenty years lest it prove false. “If we had known, no one would have died.”
“Those who died had to. They were all willing combatants.”
“You could have told us. Told me.”
Costellan’s voice showed signs of life. “What would have happened if we had told you all that was planned? How long do you suppose the Flight Crew could have remained inviolate? The colony would have stormed the Control Deck at precisely the time we needed to be left alone. The delicate calculations and procedures involved in braking Ship and approaching our destination were almost more than we could handle as it was. And assuming somehow that shipmates did not molest us, do you suppose that Arnson would have left us alone if we betrayed him? Any disturbance to our operations during the last six months could have been disastrous. The civil unrest alone was quite distracting. I am proud of my Flight Crew for focusing on their tasks and guiding Ship to its destination.”
Bitterness came easily to Jene. After years of self-hatred, she was used to the taste. “I’m glad you’re proud of them. But you and your Flight Crew were worse than Arnson and his council.”
To Jene’s mild surprise, Costellan did not object to this characterization. He merely sank into himself and seemed to withdraw. Jene felt a tiny twinge of regret for her words, but pressed on nonetheless. “Arnson, at least, was doing what he believed in. In his mind, he was doing nothing wrong or evil. But you believed he was wrong and did nothing to stop him. Nothing! You let innocent people die.” Jene fought off tears at the sudden thought of Renold.
“I did not call you here, Jene. I thought you might feel this way. I am still human enough to want…to need…your forgiveness. But I can’t ask you to forgive. All that I have told you is rationalization. Looking back, now, I wish I had spoken.”
Costellan drew in a deep shuddering breath, and Jene knew he was close to death. The tiny pang of regret she had experienced earlier returned and started to gnaw at her.
“There was a writer on old Earth named Dante. He wrote something called The Inferno. In it, he claimed that the hottest places in Hell were reserved for those who, in time of crisis, did nothing. I will die soon, perhaps even today. I hope he was wrong.”
Costellan sighed again. Jene could not look at him, ashamed at her own feelings. She could not forgive him, and she did not like herself for that.
Costellan spoke again. “You should leave me soon. But before you do, you must take one thing from our meeting. The revolution you sparked was necessary—you must believe that. I know what it cost you: your husband and now your granddaughter. But think of the magnitude of evil you thwarted. Arnson and Tann were planning mass murder. You stopped that. You must release yourself from guilt.”
Jene stared at him but did not see him. She was looking through her memory. There was no sharp twist in her point of view on the past, but she felt within her the beginning of a change. She felt the pain of twenty years fading. She knew it would never vanish: Renold would still be dead, and Yallia would still be in exile. But Jene knew that eventually she would be able to live with her past.
Jene reached for Costellan’s hand, but the old man moved away slightly and accessed a control panel on the wall behind him. He depressed a button and without warning, a section of wall slid away and the room was flooded with light. Jene squinted into the glare and recognized, after a moment, New Earth hanging in space above them.
“One of the perks of being the patriarch of my little kingdom. A view like no other, Doctor.”
Jene and Costellan looked out at New Earth for a long moment before Jene murmured, “What’s going to happen to us?” When Costellan didn’t answer, Jene turned to him. He was floating as he had been, but his eyes were closed and his arms were hanging awkwardly away from his body.
Weeks later, a package from Ship would arrive for her on New Earth. It would be an old-style journal that was beginning to yellow slightly despite its nearly acid-free paper containing hundreds of short poems written by Costellan. The poems in the leather-bound journal would be written in an ancient form from Old Earth called haiku. Jene would spend days reading them and would soon understand Costellan: he was an observer. Like a haiku poet, he strove to remove himself entirely from what he was observing. To meddle, to inject oneself into a process or a setting was anathema to haiku poetry and to Costellan’s life. Jene would come to understand the man from his poems.
But that was all still to come. Now, as she saw him floating there, eyes closed and unresponsive, she found it within herself to forgive him for his inaction. It was as if she was borrowing knowledge from the future.
“I forgive you, Eduard.” She said to the floating body.
Sometimes, the universe conspires to smile upon the humble creatures crawling within it. Costellan smiled and nodded. His lips moved, but no sound came out; still, she knew he thanked her.
He died, taking Jene’s pain with him.
Book Three
Planet
Chapter 13
Yallia looked up to the sound of children calling her name. She brushed a wisp of still-brown hair that had escaped from beneath her wide-brimmed straw hat and squinted through the green haze. She was almost in the center of the acre-wide potato field but could still see the cart near her farmhouse. Ten or twelve adults stood in and around the cart, lifting children out of the hay-lined bed and placing them on the ground. Almost like wind-up toys, the children scampered off towards Yallia as soon as the adults let go of them, and soon there were dozens of little bodies moving awkwardly in her direction.
Yallia could not help but smile at the welcome intrusion. She had not seen this part of her family for many weeks. No doubt they had heard the news and were coming to cheer her.
The little boys and girls stumbled over roots and fell into the soft dirt, laughed, brushed themselves off, caromed off each other on the uneven ground, and bit by bit made their unsteady way to their grandonlymother. The children were all almost the same age; three years old.
Twenty-six children in all, Yallia knew. She could recite each of their names and relationships to her, despite the similarity of appearance and manner. Sirra was the first to reach her, truedaughter of Emme, who was Yallia’s truedaughter. Sirra was almost always first in whatever she did.
“Grandonly!” Sirra said, launching herself bodily at Yallia and knocking the older woman to the ground. Yallia fell, laughing, her arms around the little girl to protect her from the impact.
“Ooof!” Yallia grunted. “My, you are getting big! Hey!” she said as the other children closed in. Yallia was soon buried under a loving pile of arms and legs.
“Children! Get off your Grandonly!” Yallia faintly heard Emme shouting. Slowly, the pressure on her chest lifted and daylight returned. Yallia got up from the ground with a momentary headache that quickly subsided. She smiled at the gaggle of children. “Well, there are a lot of children here!” She put her hands on her hips in an affected manner. “I wonder if any of them would like to have some salgar cookies?
There was an immediate and predictable response. They r
aced back towards the adults, who were picking their way through the potato field with dignity befitting their fifteen years, and shouted at their respective parents, “Grandonly said we can have salgar cookies!”
Sirra did not leave her grandonly, however. She was the same age as her siblings, but Emme and Yallia had both noticed the girl possessed an unusual empathy. It was why Emme had petitioned the Genetic Council for a full genome exam a few days ago.
Sirra looked at Yallia and said, “I’m sorry that your grandonly is dead.”
Yallia smiled back and kissed her. “Thank you, Sirra. But she wasn’t my grandonly—she was my grandmother.”
“Oh. I’m still sad for you.”
“That’s okay, dear.”
“How old was she?”
“She was very old. She was fifty-seven.”
Sirra considered this. “Is that old?”
“Sort of.”
“How old are you?”
“I’m twenty-seven.”
“Oh.” Sirra thought for a moment, and Yallia knew what must be going through the young girl’s mind.
Yallia leaned in close to her. “Don’t worry, Sirra. I’m not going to die.”
“Ever?”
Yallia laughed. “Not for a very, very long time. Long enough to see your children and their children and their children!”
Sirra brightened. “And you’ll make cookies for them, too?”
“Of course. Speaking of cookies,” Yallia rose and patted Sirra on the rump, “you had better get moving, kiddo. There might not be any left!”
Sirra smiled knowingly and started off at a moderate pace towards the farmhouse. Yallia watched her go, and as her eyes followed the girl’s progress, they met those of Sirra’s onlymother.
Emma did not look like her onlymother. Of course, if a holo of a fifteen-year old Yallia were to be superimposed on a similar one of Emme, the two would appear identical, but in the moment-to-moment fluidity of expression all faces undergo, Yallia and Emme were quite different. Emme did not have the same hardness, the same outward-looking, searching expression on her face that Yallia did. Emme could only partially explain her onlymother’s demeanor by her status as an Original. Not all Originals had the same questing look about them, but it was a common enough trait.
Yallia watched Emme’s approach and knew exactly what her truedaughter was thinking. Emme did not know what effect the news of Jene Halfner’s death would have on her onlymother. No one except an Original could understand the death of an ancestor due to old age.
“How are you, onlymother?” Emme said when Sirra was out of earshot.
Yallia looked at her truedaughter and smiled crookedly. “‘How are you, onlymother?’” she repeated with sarcasm. “You think I’m so fragile as to burst into hysterical tears at the thought that my fifty-seven year old grandmother, one of my family who sent me here twenty-three years ago, has finally died?”
Emme said soothingly, “Now, Yallia, no need to get mean about it. I just thought we’d bring some of your grandkids along to see you. They haven’t visited you in a few weeks.”
Yallia softened. “Thank you, Truedaughter,” she said, this time using the honorific as a gentle barb. “Whom else did you bring?” She squinted into the distance where the other adults were rounding up the children preparatory to entering the farmhouse.
“All your trues.”
Yallia nodded. She could see the tall, spare figures of her three truesons organizing the children while her other two truedaughters talked and laughed with one another. Yallia snorted. Poene and Voer had always been talkers instead of doers.
“Just them, eh?” Yallia knew she was being difficult. It must have taken considerable effort to organize the twenty-six grandchildren and six truechildren as it was. There was no need to expect Emme to bring the rest of her family as well. Still, the whole thing smacked of favoritism—Yallia loved all her children, whether they had come from her alone or from a union with another.
“I should probably see the rest soon too. I don’t want them to feel neglected.”
“Sure, Only.” Emme said it with just enough condescension to irritate Yallia.
“Look, Emme,” Yallia said, rounding on her truedaughter, “I know you think you are somehow better than my other children because you’re a clone,” Yallia used the taboo word on purpose to see her truedaughter’s gasping reaction, “but everyone on the Outside is equally important. As soon as we start deciding who is better or more worthy of respect and love, we might as well move back into the Domes.”
Emme did not answer immediately. Yallia could see her truedaughter’s eyes searching her, looking for herself in her onlymother’s face. When she did speak, she matched Yallia’s anger with softness. “As you wish, Onlymother.”
“And that’s another thing. I’m tired of everyone treating me like I’m some kind of goddomed prophet. Argue with me, tell me I’m a crazy old woman, but don’t just bow your head and say ‘as you wish, Onlymother’ like I’m a saint.”
Emme sighed. “I know you’re upset about your grandmother. If you want us to leave, we can come back later.”
“Domeit, I’m not upset!” Yallia shouted, the lie almost refusing to come out.
Emme looked at her, waiting.
Yallia felt a smile creep onto her face. “All right. But I tell you one thing. I’m not going to let those children eat all the cookies. Come on,” she said and headed towards the farmhouse.
The farmhouse, like all structures the Family built, seemed to rise naturally out of the ground. There was a certain amount of inefficiency in the sloping curves of the house, but the aesthetic effect was well worth it. The house looked as if it had been produced by the planet itself, and indeed the house had been constructed largely with materials already nearby—stone, saltclay bricks, pieces of dead wood cured naturally—so as to minimize the impact on the environment. The farmhouse, like the Family themselves, sought to make only the lightest stamp upon the world on which they lived.
“Lawson!” Yallia called and waved. A burly man filled the farmhouse doorway, holding a bucket in one hand and a cloth in the other. He waved back. Yallia and Emme approached him.
“Your brood just went inside,” Markh Lawson said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “I think I heard them talking about salgar cookies?” He looked at Yallia with bushy, grey, raised eyebrows. He glanced at Emme. “Hello, Emme.”
Emme nodded at him, lowering her eyes for a full second before looking up again, paying him the respect due an Original.
“Thanks, Law,” Yallia said. She moved towards the doorway and patted his brawny arm as he moved aside.
“Yallia,” he said hesitantly.
“I’m okay, Law,” Yallia said, not meeting his gaze.
“The household wants to call a Session.”
“About Jene?” Yallia said, this time turning to look at him.
“Well, sort of. I think Kahlman wants to bring up some policy issues.”
Yallia grunted. “All right. Go ahead and call the Session. I’ll be there in a few minutes, ok?”
“Sure.” Lawson glanced at Emme with an unreadable expression and disappeared through an interior doorway to Emme’s right.
Emme and Yallia proceeded to their left to the dining area. The farmhouse was home to eighteen Originals, but as one or more generally had lines visiting them, much space had been dedicated to common gathering areas. Emme heard the sounds of children playing in the next room. Yallia and Emme entered the dining hall to see a bedlam of children running, playing, chasing one another, knocking down chairs, and otherwise keeping their five adult supervisors very busy.
“All right! Who is making a big noise in my house?” Yallia shouted with mock-seriousness. The nearest children flocked to her and hugged her about the legs. Others laughed and shouted back, “We are!”
“Everyone who is staying for the night raise your hand,” Yallia said. A forest of arms waved frantically in front of her. Her eyes widened in preten
d horror. “All of you? Where will you sleep? I know—you can sleep with the piggies!”
Laughter and a chorus of “no’s” greeted that suggestion.
“No? Well, then, you’d better find rooms and put away your things. Your mommies and daddies and onlies and birthers will help you. Off you go, now.”
The children scattered every which way to the nearest parent. It did not matter if the person they latched onto was a genetic donor in their makeup—all were equal partners in their upbringing.
Sirra stayed near Yallia. “Where are you going, Gramma?” Yallia smiled behind a straight face. She alone saw through Yallia’s ruse.
“I have a meeting to go to. But it won’t take long, so you just wait for me, okay?”
“Okay,” Sirra said, but Yallia saw the uncertainty in her face. “Why are you angry at your own Gramma?”
The question caught Yallia off-guard. She recovered quickly, though, and managed to smile reassuringly at the child.
“I’m not, Sirra. Now you go find a bed to put your things on.” She swatted her playfully on the rump and Sirra giggled, then moved away.
Yallia watched her go with interest. Sirra’s question had been a most penetrating one—it had cut deep into Yallia, through the insulating years and experiences, almost to the knot of bitter resentment that still gnawed at her.
Perceptive as Sirra was, however, she was still a child. She could not know that she had overshot the mark by one generation.
Session was of course not underway when Yallia entered the bare room. The other seventeen Originals sat at their places, talking quietly to one another. The Presiding chair had been pulled back for Yallia, and she slid smoothly into it, glancing at the others ranged around her.
“All right. What’s so domed important that it has to pull me away from my children?”
The other Originals shifted in their seats. Without turning more than a few degrees, sixteen individuals managed to give the floor to a handsome man three seats to Yallia’s left.