Anatoly Tryvinski, the Republic of Georgia's most famous exogeologist and official state hero, slept two pods away. The lid had yet to be removed, the revival process not begun.
Lara hesitated. “Could she have entered that pod unaware?”
“Not a chance. You know how thorough the medical diagnostics are prior to sleep induction. The hemoscan would have detected it right away, even within hours after conception. No, Susan stepped into this pod cognizant of her condition.” Olivia's voice softened, saddened. “She knew what would happen, and I just don't understand her.”
“Happen?”
The doctor sighed, but the tone in her voice did not alter. “The pregnancy has to be terminated. I'll do it once full revival is complete.”
“Is that really necessary? Perhaps Susan knew the risk but thought the baby could make it. He is still alive, isn't he?”
“Oh, yes. But he won't come to term. We simply don't have the technology to hold a fetus in stasis without corrupting its development. At best, she would miscarry within six to eight weeks. At worst, the baby would be born dramatically premature and die within hours from severe neurological dysfunction.” Olivia opened her eyes wide, and their anger frightened Lara. “It was savage for Susan to enter this pod in her condition, and it would be inhuman of me to allow this pregnancy to continue.”
“I'm no medical expert, Olivia, but perhaps Susan was thinking the technology might be available when we return to Earth. Maybe they could alter the effects of hibersleep on the fetus and bring it to term.”
Olivia seemed shy of a laugh. “First of all, the damage is already done and the fetus too far developed for any sort of laser-deviation surgery. Second, if Susan were thinking along those lines, she would have recorded such a desire in her final log. She would have instructed that she be kept in hibersleep until returned to Earth. I reviewed her summation. It was brief and outlined only the duties she performed during the rotation. Nothing more.
“She'll be awake in 10 minutes. When she's on her feet, I'll inform her of my decision. The termination will only take three minutes. She'll be able to join everyone else on the command deck within half an hour after that.”
Lara wasn't going to argue further. She could see the pain in Olivia's eyes, and knew this woman was trying hard to carry on as a professional, fighting back overwhelming emotions.
She looked again into the open pod. Susan was peaceful. A pair of mechanical forearms sprawled from the life-support panel and reached down, small plungers at the end of them poised on opposite sides of the woman's chest.
The body was a graceful blend of brown and black, firm and lean. The breasts were small, typically suffering from mammo-deficiency after years in stasis. The lips were thin, glossy, a brownish pink. Her deep black hair was close-cropped.
Lara remembered this body very well, even though she had to go back many years. She shared intimacy with it on her first rotation – just the fourth shift overall – during the outward voyage. Other than the physical contact, there wasn't much she remembered of the six months she spent as partner to Susan. Granted, it had been her first homosexual experience, and for many weeks she convinced herself she'd never love another man. But the novelty passed.
Centauri III left many of those early memories in tatters.
She had never loved Susan Morehouse – of that she was certain. Quite often, the woman intimidated or angered her. Lost somewhere in between was a modicum of respect.
“I don't understand why she would have even risked getting pregnant,” Lara said. “Did she get off her triscophan supplement?”
“Sure did. The last tablet she dispensed was almost 12 weeks before the end of the rotation.”
“So, the whole thing was planned?”
“That I don't know for certain. Triscophan offers effective control for 35 days per tablet. It's possible she simply forgot.”
“May be. But why would she take this step? Do you know anything more about what happened between her and Anatoly? Other than what Fran filed in the log?”
Olivia shook her head and returned to her swivel. “Not really. There was apparently tension already building between them when Fran and Peter were revived for the next rotation. The next couple of weeks, there were a few harsh words, some vague implications, but nothing specific.”
Lara nodded. “Right. Until the day before they were put to sleep. Fran heard shouting right before she entered the Commons, and when she did, saw Anatoly sitting on the floor, bleeding from the mouth. Susan was in the galley, acting as if nothing had happened.”
“All of which brings me to why I asked you down here, Lara,” the doctor said, gingerly crossing her legs.
“Yes?”
“As you are my supervising officer, I am duty-bound to report any unethical or illegal behavior connected to the health of any member of this crew. Therefore, am I required to file an official complaint, charging Fran Conner with falsification of audio records and endangerment of a crewmate's life.”
“What?! Fran? What are you talking about?”
“Fran conducted the hemoscan on Susan. She had to know about the pregnancy but allowed Susan to enter the pod anyway. Also, she failed to include any of this in her own log, as mandated. And, I suspect, she knew the reason behind Susan and Anatoly's bitterness and also failed to record that.”
“Fran? No. I have a hard time believing it. I have met many an ethical person in my life, but none more so than Fran. She sets standards of conduct that would drive most anyone else crazy. There isn't a chance she would have allowed Susan to do this.”
Olivia paused, cleared her throat. “There is no one so morally intractable that she cannot deviate at least once in life.”
“It's so hard to believe,” Lara whispered, looking again at Susan.
“Of course, I will be willing to talk to Fran. But as her supervising officer, it's actually your place to do that,” Olivia said. “At this stage of the mission, it may all be moot. But I felt an obligation to report it.”
“I understand. I'll try to approach Fran about it.”
When Susan finally awoke, she sat up quickly, and Olivia ran to her side. “Slowly! Give your body a chance to readjust to muscular movement. The electronic stimuli don't do all the work, Susan.”
She closed her eyes, took a long, deep breath, then exhaled slowly, opened her eyes and smiled. “So, we're home, Liv?”
The voice was deeply Carib, a strong reminder of Susan's roots on the tiny island of Dominica.
“Virtually there,” the doctor said, and helped Susan lift her legs over the side of the pod.
“Ah, and you're still Captain, then?” She turned to Lara, who nodded. “How wonderful for you.”
Olivia helped the naked woman off the pod and guided her in a slow, small circle, the legs wobbly for the first few steps, then quickly gaining poise. Full circulation and muscle response had already been initiated by probe extensions from the life-support panel. Walking was now more a function of memory than anything.
Olivia did not delay. “Why did you enter the pod knowing your condition?”
Lara saw no expression to speak of when Susan was broadsided with the question.
“My rotation was up, now wasn't it, Liv?”
“That's not an excuse, Susan. You had to know what would happen. Why did you do it?”
The Dominican woman studied her bare feet, flexed her toes. She didn't look into the doctor's eyes when she replied. “I suppose you'll have to terminate the fetus?”
“Yes,” Olivia did not flinch. “I want to do it right away. But why, Susan? Why did you allow this to happen?”
The biologist's teeth were large and stained yellow when she smiled, then she shoved past the doctor. She looked around and locked her eyes upon the occupied pod. She stepped gingerly toward it, one hand pushing against the side of the chamber for support.
She reached the head of the pod, stared down through the glass lid and int
o the face of the Georgian, Anatoly Tryvinski. Her hands massaged the lid. Olivia and Lara shared a confusing glance.
“What is the sex?” Susan finally said.
“It's a boy,” Olivia responded after a pause.
“How long before Anatoly is revived?”
“I'm going to initiate the first stage momentarily. I wanted to wait until we had a chance to talk.”
“And he'll be awake how soon, Liv?”
“Probably 30, maybe 35 minutes.”
Susan dropped her hands, turned her naked body around and faced the other women. Her lips were open wide, and Lara thought the biologist was going to laugh.
“But first we should terminate my boy, don't you think, Liv?”
Lara didn't say another word and left the hibersleep chamber.
She stood before a SlipTube in silence, and she quickly realized that her repulsion was not directed toward Susan. Rather, the tears forming in the corners of her eyes were the product of memories returning in a flood.
Memories of a personal shame she thought was buried.
13
B
ryan Drenette stopped beneath the out-hanging branches of a Japanese maple. Crackling light of the western sun splashed over him.
TriCentennial Park was gorgeous this time of day, but not terribly crowded. Give it another hour, Bryan thought, and decided to take pity on an ice cream vendor without patrons.
“What you have?” The short woman behind the counter asked.
“Vanilla. One scoop.”
He yanked his BluCard from his pants pocket and handed it to the woman, who ran it through a slit in a viability-mode scanner. Bryan casually followed the procedure by exposing his left wrist to a module directly adjacent to the scanner, and a laser flashed from red to green upon confirming his genetic identity.
“One scoop, one vallor, one satisfied customer,” the vendor nodded.
Bryan thanked the woman, but the effort was weak, and he knew it. He didn't care much for ice cream, but holding the cone gave his jittery left hand something to do.
He followed the walkway some 30 meters to a pergola overlooking a slope cast in the pinks, lavenders and fluffy whites of azaleas in full bloom. This was where he told her to meet him.
He stuck out his tongue, dabbed at the ice cream, then sighed and pressed his Fountain.
“Barrier scan,” he whispered, and a three-dimensional cube emerged from the tiny beacon within the amp, settling several inches beyond his face. He casually studied the image while indulging in more of the ice cream. “Attach countermeasures for surveillance scans at a radius of 200 meters.”
That Bryan was dating Janise Albright was not a closely guarded secret, and the two of them together should have been no cause for alarm for even the most paranoid of Dome's field operatives. But given the heightened state of alert just instituted, Bryan knew there was no need in taking the risk of his own people being nearby.
“Scan is clear,” a voice reverberated through his mind, and he tapped the Fountain. The floating cube vanished.
He wondered about the point of buying the ice cream. The constant presence of cigars nullified his taste buds for all but the most exotic flavors and spices.
Bryan held this cone because he needed something to distract him while he waited. Any kind of reason to keep him on this bench, to prevent him from racing back to Dome, destroying the data cylinder and allowing the hopes of the underground to collapse – perhaps forever. But Janise would remain in the AFD.
“Here with me,” he whispered. “She’d never have to know about it.” And then, after a groan: “As if I need more guilt in my life.”
This was not the way he expected to feel, certainly not after all the years of struggle to reach this point. He had worked too hard in the politicorps structure, betrayed too many comrades, ordered too many executions, and used his penis in the influence of too many superiors – male or female – to advance the agenda that was his reason for living these past two decades.
And so, just as in all those other moments when he thought he was going soft, Bryan invoked the memory of his father. It worked him into a hot lather when he was a teen, and it was effective today.
His anger was born on June 16, 2122.
He knew right away his father's Sprint crash wasn’t accidental, as the police reported. His father maintained that Sprint as magnificently as he had his own children, and he was an outstanding pilot. Even a 15-year-old Bryan Drenette was not so naive as to close his eyes to reality.
His father warned him about the purges, carried out in most part by a disease later known as the Arvas Syndrome. Whatever else Bryan learned through the whispers of his friends made him fear for his father's life long before it came to an end. No one was really certain, but it was possible the emerging PAC had “silenced” more than 1,000 leaders and followers of the defunct colonial space program. The ones who did not die of “natural causes” or “suicide stemming from post-colonial depression” met with violent “accidents.” His father suspected then – and the son later came to learn – that the purges were not unique to the PAC. The last advocates of space colonialism were being exterminated worldwide. Since the ECs had manipulated the collapse of the colonial program a few years earlier, countless accusations pointed to the politicorporate entities.
That Bryan's father died the day after his son's graduation from senior school was no coincidence, the son reasoned. They gave his father a final gift – a chance to see his son officially enter adulthood – before murdering him.
Yet that was only a beginning. The fuel that brought him this far, the rage that allowed him to carry out this charade for two decades, came to a boil shortly before and after his father's cremation.
He never met the men who accosted him that night, G-30 rifles slung over their shoulders as they carried the flag of a burgeoning new militia known as Front Guard. But they knew his identity – and more significantly, that of his father – and the dignity they literally raped from him was but a part of the nightmare.
His mother's subsequent public denouncement of colonialism and her husband's role in it was vitriolic and heartbreaking.
Mother! Dear sweet mother!
“Part of the plague” that the ECs were going to heal the world of. That’s how she described Mackenzie Drenette less than one week after his death.
But her decision to join the regional transition committee handling California's transfer into the Pan American Community was a final blow. Her opportunism paid off two years later on PAC Inauguration Day. As she celebrated her nomination to the Pacific Coast Junior Council, her son sat in a bathtub for two hours staring at a knife he held a millimeter from his wrists. When he realized that there was an alternative to death, he found the courage to leave himself a permanent reminder of that day. He pressed the knife into his face just above his left cheekbone and dragged it an inch across his face, just below the temple. He stared into a mirror and watched the blood trickle.
Bryan couldn't remember how that obsession with death converted into a need for life, but then, he rarely thought back to those years. Only when it was important for him to try to remember his father's voice, to understand the lessons he had been taught, did he dare go back.
This, after all, was 2144, and time was in meager supply.
He looked across the garden of azaleas and saw her.
Auburn hair, brown eyes, alabaster skin. She paced herself as she walked, her tall, thin body gently swinging with elegant self-assuredness. And above her beige suit, her crimson sarong was held tight against her body by a hand resting close to her heart.
There was a time when he was certain Janise Albright might be more than his lover, but such thoughts were transitory at best. The reality always won, as Janise showed him again that morning.
And so, when she finally sat down next to him, Bryan did not hesitate to bypass the intimate pleasantries and go straight for the urgent business at hand.
/>
“It's all happening tonight. Andorran is coming.”
She didn't even pause, the news seeming to wash over her with relief more than shock. “OK. OK. Then it's time. You’re not kidding about this? Not after this morning?”
“No. Incredible as it seems. But I suppose this was always going to hit us broadside.”
“OK. Should we assume the PAC's plan is the same?”
“Yes. Rendezvous with the ship, kill the crew, retrieve the data.”
“How long do we have?”
“Should reach orbit in less than five hours. The shuttle leaves Barbados in two.”
“That's not enough time. I'll have to fly direct to see Dr. Smith. Can't risk communicating through the Grid. Not about this. Then my team will have to be readied. We can't possibly make it.”
He placed a gentle hand upon her shoulder. “Yes, you can. I'll see to it that the shuttle is grounded an extra couple of hours, maybe three. Best I can manage, but I should be able to pull it off.”
Her face glowed as Bryan handed her a copy of the same data cylinder President Travert gave him. “All the schematics are here. But be careful. The regional commands have been put on high alert.”
Janise dropped the cylinder inside a pocket and pulled shut the zipper. She stood up quickly, tilted slightly. Bryan grabbed for her, certain that she was about to tumble.
“No, no. I'm fine,” she said gently. “It's just ... well, it's so sudden. It's our chance! Finally, our chance, Bryan! We were hopeful, but we weren't sure this opportunity would ever come.”
“I know.”
“You'll be in position, just as the operation specs are laid out?” She asked.
“Yes. I'll monitor the flight grid around the Caribbean, lower the windows upon your approach.”
She nodded, and he sensed countless plans racing through her mind. No doubt they were organized, and she was putting the entire operation into focus, making a mental list of the next 30 things she had to do. But that's what Bryan loved about this woman – she could assimilate so much knowledge and project it into the most efficient use possible. She was, in short, a leader. And that was no surprise, given that she came from a long line of such people – corporate executives, ambassadors, military leaders and an American secretary of state.
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