by Laura Lam
Valerie perched on a raised chaise that fit her body like a cupped hand. The orange of Cavendish’s sun softened her features but couldn’t erase the obvious anger coiled through every line of her body. Naomi fought off the urge to curl her shoulders; it was like she was fourteen again, standing in front of Valerie to be berated for some infraction.
“Take a seat,” Valerie said as four more chairs rose from the ground—lower than Valerie’s, Naomi noticed. She eased into her chair, her heartbeat thudding steadily in her ears.
“Well,” Valerie said after they’d settled. “You’ve certainly been busy.”
“You’re spying on us,” Hart said.
Valerie gave a sardonic half-smile. “Don’t act sanctimonious now, Hart, when y’all have been questioning me, my leadership, and the mission.” With a pained sigh, she gave each of them an uncomfortably long look. “I thought when I picked you out of the hundreds of candidates clamouring for the job it was because you knew the significance of reaching Cavendish. That it was of the utmost importance, no matter what happened back on Earth.”
Naomi focused on the spiderweb of the base camp spun in delicate gossamer over the backdrop behind Valerie.
“Why are there embryos on board, Dr. Black?” Hart asked, biting back her anger. “As medic, I should have been made aware. There are experiments I could have been conducting, ensuring their health and viability.”
“We all should have been informed,” Naomi said. “Between this and not mentioning Cochran’s message until the last possible moment, we’re understandably concerned.”
Valerie’s gaze snapped towards Naomi like a whip.
“We’re a team,” Hixon said, playing peacemaker. “We need to understand. To know what’s at stake.”
“The mission is of utmost importance,” Lebedeva said. “We realise this. I am still committed to Cavendish. As we all are.”
Valerie’s expression flickered. She drummed her fingers against the armrest.
“Cavendish is a marvel,” she said. “An unprecedented chance to start again. Earth has thirty years at best. We don’t know how long it’ll take to build the exodus ships, or who they will choose to send. Trying to influence that blew up in our faces, so of course I wanted to bring a backup, just in case.”
She pressed her lips together, choosing her next words. “We spent weeks coming up with the basis of a new society. Where people can’t be kept down. Not everyone would be able to game the system like I did, working my way from nothing to everything. I had to make compromises to get where I was, and I’m not proud of it. I’m not going to pretend I haven’t shifted my moral compass to an uncomfortable direction at times, to make sure my overall direction was true. That didn’t mean I wanted to put you through that.” Her face was distant.
With a wave of her hand, she changed the background from Cavendish to overpopulated, trash-strewn Earth. Rivers choked with garbage. Beaches carpeted with debris.
Naomi shifted her stance. This had all the makings of one of Valerie’s grand speeches. A TED Talk or a keynote. How long had she practised this?
“You didn’t agree, at first, that we should consider taking a ship of children to Cavendish and establish the new society,” Valerie continued. “So people like Cochran don’t copy and paste the same goddamn problems. You didn’t like it, but you saw my reasoning.” She rose, pacing, unfastening the top button of her coveralls. Committing to the performance. “We can’t let them come. We gave them enough chances to do the right thing. They will learn nothing.” She clenched her jaw, the cords standing out in her neck. “They won’t change. They’re incapable of it.”
“What are you saying, Valerie?” Naomi asked. “What are the embryos, beyond insurance?”
Hart widened her eyes at Naomi’s boldness, and Hixon’s gaze flattened. As second in command, she should have been the one asking the hard questions, but she’d clammed up, too afraid to hold Valerie accountable in front of the others.
Valerie exhaled, forcing herself to release the tension. “You are scientists. When an experiment has failed, when a sample is contaminated, or when you can’t figure out how to undo all the things that have gone wrong, what do you do? Do you keep conducting the same experiment, over and over, with the tainted batch? Or do you start again, fresh, with different conditions?”
Naomi couldn’t breathe.
“Earth isn’t an experiment,” Hart said. Lebedeva ran her hands through the buzz of her hair.
“Earth is already a lost cause. Thirty years was overly optimistic. Humans will find ways around the bans, the limits, the sanctions. Cheat, take, let others worry about the mess they leave behind. That’s how we got into this mess. I thought we could break the cycle, with one ship of young people. Cochran didn’t give us the chance.” Valerie licked her lips. “It might not have worked anyway—there’s the risk that the children would already have society’s influences embedded in them. Travelling so far, so young, would have psychological effects, but people like you, Hart, would be able to mitigate that.” A sardonic nod of her head at the doctor. Hart’s nostrils flared.
Naomi’s skin tingled. “How convenient, then, that something so awful has broken out back home. With Earth so distracted, it’ll be easier to jump through the ring. Hard for countries to divert resources to an exosolar planet with chaos on the ground.”
Hixon’s head snapped towards Naomi. “You can’t mean—”
Valerie held up a hand. “Now, now, let Naomi finish her accusation.”
Naomi sucked in a breath. She’d first assumed the illness was due to climate change factors. The strains of antigens change each year, and quadrivalent strains of flu shots had been losing their efficacy. Trying to increase vaccination success to former levels was Evan’s entire job. But this made her question that.
God, Valerie might have even gotten the idea from her son. He’d talked about infectious diseases at the dinner table one Thanksgiving until Naomi had thrown a bread roll at him and begged him to stop describing pustules while they were eating. The outbreak had started not far from Evan’s work—which meant it also wasn’t far from Hawthorne’s headquarters. Naomi cursed herself for a fool.
“Valerie can’t be behind this. We left months ago. Anything that contagious would have already taken effect,” Hixon said. Hart lifted her chin, mouth working as if to bite back sharp words towards her wife.
Valerie hesitated just a beat too long.
“No,” Naomi whispered. “Valerie.”
“If your algae dies, do you keep working with the dead cells?” Valerie asked, soft. Her pupils were wide in the orange glow. She didn’t blink. “I’ve tried every option. Run every other scenario. They’ll notice, soon, that it’s developed from Seventh Disease.” No one on board had ever come down with the childhood disease—the oldest people who had it were probably only about nineteen or twenty. Naomi remembered seeing photos of the red splotches across children’s skin, larger than chicken pox sores but just as itchy. A few years ago, they’d developed a vaccine they’d started giving children, but they hadn’t bothered with adults. The illness, unlike chicken pox, was milder in adults than children.
Hart blinked fast, making the same connections. “Oh, God.”
Naomi struggled to keep up. “You’re killing the adults but keeping the children?”
“Some adults will survive,” Valerie said. “Perhaps five per cent.”
Lebedeva squeezed her eyes shut.
“Valerie, you can’t do this,” Naomi said, her throat tight. “You can’t.”
“It’s a tragedy, but I’m being kinder. No drawn-out suffering. No inevitable war and violence as Earth grows hotter and they continue to compete for resources. Brazil has the largest amount of clean water in the world. Think they’ll look after it as well as the Amazon? This will be quick. A few months, no more.” She didn’t blink as she spoke. She had the fervour of a zealot.
Hixon’s head jerked back. None of them wanted to believe Valerie capable of this. Le
bedeva moved towards the door of the rec room, her arms crossed, and Naomi couldn’t help notice it was as if she guarded it.
Hart and Hixon’s heads turned to her as the same knowledge dawned.
“How long have you known?” Hixon asked.
Lebedeva’s face was smooth as slate. “Months.” She said the word, heavily, not as if it had been weighing on her, but as a relief that she could finally set it down. She had lied to them, back on the bridge. She’d known about the embryos. About all of it. Was she the one who had turned the comms back on, without the others noticing?
Everything around Naomi shifted. Her vision went close, her skin clammy and cold.
“You’re not killers, either of you,” Naomi tried. “You can’t just stand by and let this happen.”
“This is what’s best for humanity as a species. You’ll see. We’ll be free. No need to worry about Earth following us through. Whichever country has the most money, the most power, the most weapons, would be able to oust us and disrupt our vision.” Valerie’s expression was bright, resplendent.
It was a terrible moment, to look at the woman who had raised her and fully realise that the person Naomi had put so much faith into, so much loyalty, was unworthy of all of it. Naomi had defended Valerie so many times, made so many excuses. So many had called the CEO of Hawthorne selfish, mercenary. Naomi had always dismissed it as jealousy, or insisted that they were intimidated by Valerie’s drive.
It had been that, sure, but some had also been warnings from those who had seen through her.
“How does the virus work?” Hart asked.
Valerie smirked. “So you can try and magically engineer a vaccine or a cure in your little lab? You know as well as I do that would take too long. It’s aggressive.”
Naomi dug her fingernails into her palms.
“How did you do this?” Hart asked. “You’re an engineer, an architect, not a doctor with this level of expertise. Who did you work with?”
Valerie only smiled.
For a fleeting second, Naomi worried it was Evan. He’d have the knowledge, but not the will. No. Not him. Valerie would crow about it if she’d finally convinced her son to come fully to her side. Naomi’s mind whirled. “Plenty in Hawthorne work in immunology. Dr. Bryony Goulding, she’s head of health research for Project Atalanta.” At the tightening of the skin around Valerie’s eyes, Naomi knew she’d guessed correctly. The tall woman who had sat at the same table as Naomi at that fundraising dinner on Catalina Island. She’d already have been developing it then, if not finished. Naomi pushed down on an absurd flush of jealousy. “What did you promise her?”
Valerie gave a slow blink. “Immunity and a ticket to Cavendish on the first ship out,” she said.
“You can make people immune,” Hart said.
“Obviously.” Valerie was just shy of rolling her eyes. “I wouldn’t engineer a disease without a cure.”
“Valerie,” Naomi said, with a stab of hope. “You can get Bryony to leak it. No one ever needs to know. You can undo this.”
Valerie’s brow rippled. “Now, why would I go and do a thing like that when everything is going so well?”
“Evan is down there,” Naomi said, hating how her voice thickened with tears. Valerie despised any show of weakness. “The father of your granddaughter. Please. You can’t.”
Valerie blinked three times, a lump moving down her throat as she swallowed. Then her features schooled into the coolness Naomi had seen countless times before.
The others suppressed their surprise. Naomi knew Hart had suspected Cole was the father, despite their divorce. Hixon and Lebedeva had never asked who the father was, but they clearly hadn’t expected her to sleep with Valerie’s son.
“I gave him so many chances. To do what I needed him to do to fulfil his potential. But he couldn’t commit.” Valerie’s forehead smoothed. “There is no place on Cavendish for him.”
Naomi’s breath came short and fast. “Bullshit.”
Valerie’s head reared back, a cobra flaring its hood.
“No.” Naomi pressed on. “This is murder. Genocide on a global scale. You can’t use morality here. There is none.”
Valerie’s eyes flashed. “Don’t test me, Naomi. You’ve already pushed me enough.”
“I guess you can take comfort that your DNA will live on,” she said, her voice bitter as wormwood.
“Indeed it will,” Valerie said. “Hixon.”
The pilot’s head snapped up, almost to attention. A soldier through and through.
“Stay the course. We’ll jump on schedule.”
Hixon’s spine was straight as the ghostly blueprints behind her. “Valerie…” she began.
“Dr. Black,” Valerie corrected. “That’s a direct order, Hixon. Now’s the time to decide: are you staying to the mission or wavering?”
Lebedeva shifted subtly by the door.
Hixon’s shoulders fell, her head dipping. She slid past Lebedeva, who watched with narrowed eyes.
“Jerrie!” Hart called after her. Hixon paused, but didn’t turn back. Hart’s face creased in betrayal.
“Now,” Valerie said. “Hart, you are to be confined to your quarters. Naomi, you’ll be in the lab. Lebedeva will bring through your mattress. You’re to keep tending to the crops and processing nutriblocks. You’ll both stay there at least until we jump. After that. Well. It depends on you.”
Lebedeva took cable ties from the pocket of her coveralls. She clamped Naomi’s hands behind her back first. Naomi debated fighting back, but between Lebedeva’s strength and her growing belly, she didn’t have the bravery. Lebedeva’s brows drew down, as if she guessed Naomi’s thoughts.
Hart’s nostrils flared, and she made a run for the door. Lebedeva caught her by the ankle with a hooked foot, and Hart went down, hard. She struggled, and Lebedeva wrenched her arms back, securing the cable. Naomi clenched her jaw. What was the point in running? Where could they go on a locked ship?
“Earth is gone,” Valerie said. She looked at Naomi, and Naomi alone, as if pleading for her to understand. The plastic of the cable ties dug into Naomi’s skin. “It is a fossil. A past civilisation we’ll study on Cavendish, no different than the ancient Romans or Egyptians. All empires fall. But we can build something that lasts.”
Valerie drifted closer, rested a hand on Naomi’s cheek. “I suggest you start thinking about what you want your place in this new world to be. What sort of life on Cavendish you want my grandbaby to have. We can make it a blank slate for the both of us. It’s up to you.” Lebedeva tugged Naomi, dragging both her and Hart from the room.
Valerie turned back to her vision of Cavendish.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
4 Years Before Launch
Pasadena, California
When Naomi discovered Cole had found another woman, her first emotion hadn’t been anger, but relief.
She’d found out four months after the pill had fallen from his pocket. She’d watched him, palming the medicine each morning while taking a sip of orange juice. He’d have made a half-decent magician, with that sleight of hand. She’d missed her last few cycles, but pregnancy tests still showed negatives. The cysts on her ovaries might have gotten larger, blocking ovulation entirely.
Those last few months, she and Cole lived separate lives. Breakfast was the only real time they spent together, along with sleeping on opposite sides of the bed. Gone were Cole’s absent-minded, lingering touches he gave early in their relationship, as if he couldn’t bear not to touch her for too long. He came back later and later, but instead of being stressed from the supposed overtime, his muscles were lax. It didn’t take her long to put it together.
She packed up a suitcase of what she wanted to keep and donated the rest to goodwill, a few bags at a time. She had no need for the furniture, and most of it wasn’t to her taste, anyway. She’d bought it so that when people came over, they saw an apartment befitting the Man of Mars. Futuristic, swish, too expensive. Who the hell was she trying to imp
ress?
Naomi debated leaving a note, simply disappearing, but she was someone who craved closure. She didn’t want the end niggling at her, late at night—something she poked at like a sore tooth.
She stayed calm, rational. She laid out the evidence. The pills, the affair. She’d suspected and followed him from work one day, certain she’d been wrong right up until she’d seen him walk up to a woman with dark hair, his face lit up with the smile he no longer gave Naomi. He’d kissed her, right on the sidewalk, and Naomi had asked the car to take her home.
Naomi had found out the woman’s name, hating herself for looking her up online. It hadn’t been hard. Mel Simmons. One quick search found photos or witty statuses on her social feeds, her bylines on news sites. Mel was a sharp writer, her articles punchy and persuading.
Naomi finally, finally told Cole that she couldn’t give him what he wanted, and that he’d be better off with Mel. She would be used to the sharp teeth of the public world. Mel would shine in the documentary, whereas Naomi was someone who would happily sidestep the spotlight.
Cole had spat insults, called her a cold bitch for lying, even as he knew he had no leg to stand on. She’d taken it, waiting until he sputtered out and her silence made him sheepish. She’d pulled up the handle on her luggage and rolled out of that godawful apartment and made her way to the airport.
She’d thought she’d cry in the car, where no one could see her except for the automated driving system. Everyone had grown used to giving orders to the pleasant-voiced feminine robots. Alexa, Siri, Sophia, Sage, do this for me. A perky “okay,” and your wish was her command. They’d all been doing it for years before women started realising the men in their lives had been conditioned to do the same to them. And by then it was too late.