Homefront

by Scott James Magner

  Howling at the pain of the burn, Mira opened her eyes to the night sky just as Jantine entered the clearing. The waffle pattern of the wire frame was seared into her palm, and the smell of her own flesh combined with the roasting pheasant filled the air. The meat was resting directly on the coals now, and blackening around the edges.

  Happy was a warm presence at her back, and across the clearing Serene was sprawled unconscious against Grumpy in similar fashion. The Omega’s cold hatred came off him in waves, but for the moment he was more concerned with Serene than any thoughts of revenge.

  The pain of her burn was pure agony, but it was nothing compared to losing so many parts of herself at once. There were holes in her life now, empty spaces where her childhood used to be. Any memories not directly related to her family or the Academy were just gone, and the words were out of her mouth before she knew what she was saying.

  "She took them. The Gamma memories. They went into my mind and just took them!"

  Thanks to her new and improved biology, the burn on her hand was already healing, and a Mira felt a slight rush as her body flooded with endorphins. But while it helped to dull her physical pain, it only magnified the feeling of being in two places at once.

  Part of me is over there now, locked up in that little girl’s head. Is what’s left enough to make a whole me?

  Jantine’s face had turned to stone, and the light of the coals made her expression even more dramatic. But it was nothing compared to the storm brewing in her mind, and Mira sent her what she thought was a wave of comfort and acceptance before the Beta acted on any of her murderous thoughts.

  "It’s all right, Jantine. It’s all right. They weren’t mine anyway. Don’t do anything rash until I figure out how bad it is."

  "This is not done. Ever. She must be held accountable."

  The logical consequences of what she was thinking hit Jantine like a landslide, and the Beta shut herself down so completely that Happy’s other hand had to reach out to catch her before she fell into the fire. The Omega drew both women into a tight embrace, but as he did one of Jantine’s feet bumped the pot, knocking it over. A wave of scented liquid spilled onto the burning pheasant breasts and extinguished the coals.

  Years of therapy after Brian’s death had taught Mira a couple coping mechanisms for impossible situations. One was to shut down all emotion until she was in a safe environment, and another was to turn pain into laughter.

  Mira started laughing, drawing a puzzled stare from Artemus as he crashed through the trees. The sight of the Delta’s expression and a weapon in each of his four hands only made her laugh harder, and sensing Katra rushing toward the camp in a similar state of alarm only added to the sheer absurdity of the scene.

  Dinner’s served, everyone. Come and get it!

  The laughter helped Mira push back feelings of outrage from the mods around her—an emotion she was ill-equipped to deal with without the Gamma memories. Only Happy knew the true extent of what Serene had done, and he did his best to shield her from their feelings.

  Jantine recovered quickly, and pushed her way out of Happy’s arms. That she was furious with Serene and Grumpy didn’t make Mira feel any better. If anything, Mira could sense Jantine’s emotions even stronger than before.

  Despite Happy’s help and her endorphin rush, Mira’s head was pounding. She knew she had only one chance to stop Jantine from starting a fight she couldn’t possibly win, even though the Alpha deserved everything Jantine was thinking about doing to her.

  "Jantine, Stop. We can get through this. Just don’t push her right now, Grumpy’s right on the edge and I don’t know what he’ll do next."

  "Grumpy? What is grumpy? Another Earther thing I am required to learn?"

  Mira stood on shaky legs, grateful that Happy was there to keep her from falling. "It’s what I’ve been calling the . . . Serene’s Omega. Just to keep them straight in my head. Happy is this fella here."

  Jantine stared at her, and Mira could feel a mental message forming in the Beta’s mind. Unsure of what that might feel like, Mira waved her off.

  "Just let me handle this. And keep the others back. It’s . . . hard to be around you all right now."

  Mira pushed gently on Happy’s arm, then took a tentative step toward Serene. Jantine’s anger was a bonfire behind her, one that kindled in Katra and Artemus as well as she explained what had happened. But Mira only had eyes for the strange alien child and her hulking guardian.

  Out of habit, Mira reached for the Gamma memories for some clue as to how Grumpy would react to a confrontation. The cold emptiness in her mind was almost as frightening as the Omega scowling at her. She should be angry. Furious. But although she knew the words and understood the general concepts, her emotions were savaged as badly as her memories. All she had left was happiness, pain, disappointment, and fear—and a headache that would not go away.

  After a few more steps, she stared into the eyes of the seated Omega, and spoke from her heart.

  "That can never happen again. I would have given them to you gladly, if you’d asked. But you hurt me, very badly, and now I don’t know how, or even if, I can help you."

  Mira could feel Grumpy’s anger, and tried to replicate it in herself. But it faded too fast, and she was about to continue her harangue when she realized why; Serene was awake, and every bit as upset as Mira. But the Alpha was more direct in her disapproval, and whatever she was doing to him went from subtle to sadistic in a flash. Even without a full connection, Mira could tell he was in agony, and she knew she had to do something to stop Serene from seriously damaging his mind.

  "What are you doing? Stop that, it’s not helping anyone! We have to learn to work together, or it’s going to go very badly for us."

  Grumpy’s pain vanished, though he was visibly shaken. Mira’s knowledge of the Omegas was spotty at best, but she could still remember all of her interactions with Happy, and Jantine’s reaction to the mental assault gave her an idea of how serious the matter was for them.

  Serene stood and looked up into Mira’s face. Mira’s first instinct was to kneel down and talk to her as she would a child, but was unwilling to cede any advantage to the Alpha she didn’t have to.

  "I am sorry. O-6913 told me no harm would come to you, and I believed him. You have been kind to me, and I see in your memories the kind of person you are. You should not have been made to suffer."

  The thought of an alien child being able to remember things about her life she could not was agonizing, but Mira forced herself to remain calm.

  Serene stepped forward and took one of Mira’s hands in both of her own. The Alpha’s skin was much warmer than Mira’s, and in Serene’s touch Mira felt an echo of the electric charge JonB’s similar gesture had imparted.

  Despite herself, Mira smiled. Serene did too, and Mira could sense genuine regret in her mind. Remembering how it had felt to have other people’s lives forced upon her, Mira knew Serene had to be more than a little out of sorts right now and hadn’t meant to hurt Grumpy.

  Then she felt it, and all Mira’s sympathetic thoughts vanished in a heartbeat.

  The Alpha’s level of control was amazing, much more subtle than Mira’s blundering efforts. But even though Serene was using the Gamma memories to guide her efforts, Mira’s empathic ability was far stronger. Making note of her technique, Mira started building a wall to keep her out, while at the same time planning a verbal response. Putting aside any ethical concerns about what she’d done, Serene was still a child, and not quite in control of her actions.

  Of course, now she’s got a dozen lifetimes worth of memories in her head telling her what to do. Thirteen, counting mine. How much longer can she really be considered a child?

  "It probably would have been fine, with a Gamma. Not right, not by a long shot. But I’m different, and what the two of you did is considered a serious crime on my planet."

  Or it would be, if we had any telepaths of our own.

  "As you say. I will think on how to m
ake proper restitution. You and I are linked now, and harm done to you is harm to myself. As you say, we must do better in the future at expressing our desires."

  These last words came with an empathic rebuke for Grumpy, and Mira couldn’t let Serene have the final emotional word. She let go of Serene’s hands, reaching out instead to the Omega’s face.

  Mira was impressed by how steady her fingers were. Grumpy’s skin was much cooler than Serene’s, and Mira focused as strong a burst of forgiveness as she could muster.

  She was still upset, and she let him know it. But while they touched, Mira could sense all the confusion she’d suspected Grumpy was feeling regarding their very long, very stressful day. He honestly hadn’t intended to hurt her, but at the same time he really didn’t care that he had.

  That, more than anything, made up Mira’s mind to go forward with JonB’s plan. She and the Betas would have to stay alert at all times to prevent any further mishaps, especially now that Serene had demonstrated an ability to enter their minds uninvited. The Alpha was too unpredictable to leave unsupervised, and Grumpy was far from an effective counselor.

  Mira walked back to the extinguished cookfire, leaving Serene and Grumpy to work out their differences. Happy was sitting and staring at the remains of dinner with a sigh in his heart. Mira sent him a smile, and the memory of her mother’s gumbo. She got one in return along with an image of herself, Carlton and Happy walking along a path eating ice cream.

  It took her a moment to realize she was looking at one of her own memories, recovered and translated through the Omega’s eyes. Skipping stones along the river with Debbi and Tommy Watson after a revival meeting, making plans for their future. Tommy didn’t want Mira to go to the Academy, and that was the day Debbi realized he was never going to marry her, because he was in love with someone else.

  Love. I can remember love!

  The bittersweet memory of three friendships ending forever wasn’t exactly appropriate to the situation, but Mira thought it was the most wonderful gift she’d ever received. She didn’t trust her emotions, so she crushed herself to the Omega’s chest for almost a minute, savoring that long-ago day when her world was simple and small.

  Though it must have looked ridiculous to the other mods, she moved her hands up to his cheeks, then leaned in and kissed Happy on his lipless mouth. She sent him her thanks, along with an image of her mother’s last family dinner, with him in the guest of honor’s chair.

  Stepping back, Mira thought about the scenes Happy had shared with her just before the attack. With only memories of her memories of what Colonial life was like, it was hard to be sure, but Mira had a strong sense that there was no real concept of privacy in their worlds. With Gammas and Alphas able to root out any secrets, it was no wonder that Jantine maintained such strong mental discipline. Even now, in conversation with Artemus and Katra, the Beta was pointedly avoiding looking in her direction, allowing her to deal with the Omegas in her own way.

  A thought struck her, and she was about to share it with Happy when an image came into Artemus’s mind. JonB and Carlton were in a building, working on a—

  Oh, you clever, clever boys. That’s perfect!

  "Jantine?"

  Jantine’s conversation with Katra and Artemus died abruptly, and all three turned to look at Mira.

  "You should ask Artemus what the other Betas are doing. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised."

  A few seconds later a flash of annoyance mixed with laughter slipped past Jantine’s shields. Apparently, Artemus hadn’t yet told her what the boys were up to, and Jantine wasn’t sure how to react to the news. But building a train solved a lot of their travel-related problems, and Mira was happy for any good news she could get.

  We’re all feeling our way blind today, and today just keeps getting longer.

  Jantine and Artemus set off into the trees without Katra, with the former intent on seeing the engine for herself. Mira could tell Katra was upset that the meal she’d been preparing was ruined, and Mira resolved to cook her another one as soon as possible. Turning to the Omega, she smiled and opened her mind to him. Without Doria’s direct experience as a guide, it was a little rough at first, but Happy supplied the missing mental steps for her. This time, instead of entering his mind, she held out her unburned hand, palm up.

  "I’m Mira, Mira Harlan. What’s your name?"

  Happy simply stared back at her, mind in neutral. It wasn’t until she repeated the words a second time that he understood what she was asking, and his reaction was not at all what she expected.

  The Omega jumped to his feet, hands out and head shaking. Mira brushed aside his refusals, sending the concept of an introduction and a handshake again. Then she sat on the ground, and patted the space next to her.

  "This is Kansas, my friend. You’re not in the Colonies anymore. And among friends, we speak as equals. So what’s your name, or do you want me to pick one for you?"

  Happy didn’t respond at first, but after a minute or so of silence he eased himself down next to her, and looked up at the sky. Mira followed his gaze, and started pointing at the stars.

  "That one? It’s called Vega. But if you look at the stars around it like so," Mira made a drawing motion with her finger, adding lines of light in her imagination, "you get the constellation Lyra. The ancients thought it looked like a lyre, a kind of harp the god Hermes gave to his brother Apollo."

  Mira could tell that Katra was listening to her every word as well. Without openly acknowledging the Gamma’s presence, Mira raised her voice so Katra could hear her better.

  "And that one over there is Rukbat. It’s the knee of Sagittarius. Most of what we can see of the constellation from here are actually clusters of more distant stars, but in the ancient world they had no way of knowing that. There are a lot of stories about how it was named, but my favorite involves . . ."

  Happy did something to his eyes, and Mira’s voice trailed off in wonder. She’d been happy just to look up at the stars and talk, seeing them now with her improved transgenic vision as if for the first time. But instead of the slightly better defined blobs she was enjoying moments before, through the Omega’s eyes now saw Sagittarius A in all its multi-spectrum glory. The burning black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy was sending out radio waves across the millennia, to find two lost souls on an insignificant planet at the edge of everything.

  Oh, wow.

  It was several minutes before Happy returned the universe to an understandable state, during which Mira simply watched in silence. There were no words to describe what she’d seen, colors unknown to even the most sensitive instruments and rolling waves of energy dancing across the sky.

  Happy sat beside her, truly content since the first time she’d tasted his thoughts. He saw the universe like this all the time, but only through her eyes was it magical.

  There was something else new in his emotions. Curiosity. Not how she understood it, but something much deeper. He wanted to see everything through her eyes now, and experience the world he knew in a different way.

  But more importantly, he wanted to hear the story she’d started. Mira leaned into his arm, closed her eyes, and remembered her father’s voice.

  "It was a long time ago, before humans sailed the stars or even understood what they were. In a land where gods walked the earth, a group of ordinary men set out on a quest aboard a ship called the Argo . . ."

  Jantine

  "HOW MUCH LONGER WILL THE REPAIRS TO THE TRACKS take this time, JonB?"

  Jantine looked past the civvie towards the east, a seemingly unending expanse of green hills and blue sky. Sol was already high overhead when they arrived here, and it had moved several degrees while the train sat idle.

  JonB’s face was smudged with some black substance different from the dirt on his jumpsuit and forehead. He appeared not to notice, and Jantine had to admit she liked the way it looked.

  "It depends on whether the tracks are intact under the soil. They should be: the f
oundation blocks are sunk deep into the ground. But we won’t know for sure until we dig it out. Katra’s forward survey found intact tracks coming out of the ground two kilometers ahead."

  Katra had already relayed the results of her scouting mission to Jantine through the scattercomm, but the longer the team stayed in one place, the more exposed she felt. Not being in control was becoming the norm rather than the exception, and she didn’t like it.

  Working through the night, JonB, Carlton, and Mira had constructed a working transport, attached several empty containers to it, and got them moving towards Chicago. Mira had mentioned that she used to repair things aboard the Valiant, but when the three of them got to work, the woman’s skill was truly impressive.

  Another thing she’s better at than the rest of us. Perhaps JonB’s plan was not too far off the mark after all.

  "Are we going to have to lay down new tracks again?"

  Although the engine was running fine off the converted power cells, several kilometers from their starting point they’d had to stop when the rail line ran out of metal tracks, and again a few hours later when fallen trees blocked their path.

  "Most likely not. But then again, we weren’t expecting to do it the last time either. The system is in very good shape overall, but after four hundred years, I’m just happy we’ve made it this far."

  It was a minor miracle, made possible only by the combined technical talents of JonB, Carlton, and Mira Harlan.

  Although Mira had reached her own peace with Serene, what the Alpha had done, or allowed to happen, to the Earther still made Jantine uneasy. The woman seemed to be adapting well enough to yet another change in her status, and having a project to work on certainly helped.

  In fact, Jantine had had to order her and the Betas to take a rest period before they started traveling, but after they’d slept a few hours, it had not taken much more work to make the engine fully operational. The adapted power cells required frequent recharging, but Sol had energy to spare.