Does this have to do with the mysterious Mr. Pohlmeyer? If it does, why not just contact me.
She turned to Noah, but the thought hit her. Had Pohlmeyer contacted him as well?
“I’m not sure that Shiloh will go. I don’t know her plans for after Sunday,” Noah said, bringing her attention back to the matter at hand.
“You can ask. Our shuttle isn’t until 2015, so that still leaves her all day tomorrow to spend with the rest of the family. And if she doesn’t want to go, that’s OK. What we need is you.”
“Kukson is pretty close to Confederation Space,” Esther said as casually as she could, watching the two men closely for any indication of . . . well, she wasn’t sure what, but anything.
Neither man batted an eye.
That proves nothing, she admitted to herself. If it is the Confeds, do I even want to meet with them? I need to talk this over with Noah.
She cleared her throat and said, “Noah and I need to discuss this, General. As you can imagine, this has taken us both of us by surprise. How about if we contact you tomorrow morning and let you know . . . unless you have anything else you can tell us about this?”
“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing else we can say about it now. Just . . . just be assured that this is something you will want to do. Trust us.”
He looked over at Sergeant Major Çağlar, then at some unseen signal, they both stood in unison. With one last look at the twins, General Simone nodded, and both men walked off, their drinks untouched.
“Well, that wasn’t what I expected,” Noah said as the two were left alone. “What the grubbing hell was that all about? They just expect us to take a trip to Kukson, just like that?”
“Noah, did anyone ever approach you during your career?”
“What do you mean, Ess?”
“I mean, like a Confed official?”
“Lots of times. I’ve worked with them all through my career, and as Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, I worked closely with Prefect Simmons. I spent time at the prefect’s home even.”
“I mean, something more, well, clandestine?”
“No, I don’t think so. What do you mean?”
Esther looked into her brother’s eyes and could see no subterfuge in them. Pohlmeyer hadn’t contacted him. She hesitated, wondering if she should bring it up, but he was her twin, and he’d always had her back. It wasn’t as if she’d ever acted on that meeting, anyway.
Succinctly, she told Noah about her meeting with Pohlmeyer and his offer to be there in case she ever wanted to contact him. Noah’s eyebrows rose as he listened, but otherwise, he did not react while she spoke.
After she was done, he sat quietly for a moment before saying, “It makes sense.”
“What? That’s all you can say?”
“You know the rumors that the Confederation had a hand in the Evolution. It doesn’t surprise me that Father had a contact there.”
“And that doesn’t bother you? That he was working with the Confeds?”
“Not really. I trust Father had good reason for everything he did. And it all worked out, right? We’re not under the yoke of the Confederation, right?”
For someone who’d just heard that their father and possibly his sister had at least dabbled in what some might consider treason, he was taking it remarkably well. It had taken Esther months to come to grip with the idea.
“Why didn’t they contact you, then, if this was on the up-and-up?”
“Institutional bias,” Noah said.
“What?”
“Institutional bias. I was enlisted. You were an officer. They simply assumed that I would never be in a position of affecting the Federation while you could be.”
“But you made Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps!”
“Which is still enlisted,” he said, then when Esther started to protest, added, “Don’t worry about it. That’s the way it is. And the Sergeant Major Mafia, we kind of like it that way. Gives us more freedom to do what needs to get done.
“The question is now what do we do. If this is a Confederation reach out, do we accept the contact? And why now anyway? Neither one of us has any official capacity anymore.”
“So, what do you think?” she asked.
“I don’t know. My curiosity is up, I can tell you that. And there’s one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Trust, like General Simone said. You know that there aren’t two more people in the universe that Father trusted more. If he trusted these two, then how can we not?”
“So, you think we should go with them?” she asked.
“Yeah, I think I do.”
Esther thought about it for a moment, but realized her decision had already been made. She’d only been seeking Noah’s concurrence.
“OK, Little Bro, let’s do it.”
KUKSON
Noah
“I don’t know why you have to go,” Shiloh said as he packed his old Marine Corps assault pack. “Is it mom and Colonel Howard? That I invited them?”
“Oh, you know that isn’t true. It’s just that something came up, and your aunt and I need to take care of it. We’ll be back before you know it.”
“I was hoping that you would be here, you know, a family thing before I report in. That’s the only reason I agreed to this.”
Noah quit packing, then stepped around the bed to put his real hand on her shoulder. He said, “I think it’s great that your mother is coming, really.”
“You said ‘really,’ which means you don’t think it’s great,” she said in a sour tone.
Oh, baby. You know me too well.
And it wasn’t great, at least to him. After he’d given Shiloh the ticket, she’d immediately invited Miriam who had bought three tickets of her own for her, Colonel Howard, and Hannah, to depart the next day. He’d hoped to spend more time with his daughter, but that was before he and Esther found out that Kukson was just a way stop. The two of them had one more trip to reach their still unknown destination.
It’s probably better that Miriam is coming, though, he admitted to himself. Better than her being alone while Ess and I are gone.
“No, it is great. And we’ll be back soon. So, go pick up your mother and Hannah—”
“And Colonel Howard.”
“Yes, and the colonel. Have a great time, and we’ll all get together as soon as we get back.”
“Promise?”
“Ma’am, yes ma’am!” he shouted, coming to an exaggerated position of attention and saluting.
She laughed, which was his intention, and said, “OK, you just make sure you come back in time. And you’re right. I’ve got to boogie if I’m going to meet them at the spaceport.”
She gave him a last hug, rapped on his titanium arm, then left the room. He watched her go, suddenly feeling dirty for using his daughter as an excuse to come on a venture he didn’t even know was a good idea. He vowed that he’d make it up to her.
Five minutes later, he was packed and knocking on Esther’s door.
He heard her muffled command, “Open door.” A moment later, the door slid back into an empty room.
“I’m in here,” she shouted.
He followed the voice into the bedroom where his sister had her open suitcase on the bed, only half full of the pile of clothes beside it.
“Geeze, Ess. I thought the Corps taught you to travel light. This is like when you were a teenager.”
“I’m a civilian now, and you try packing for those two,” she said, lifting her chin to Jimmy, who was asleep in the carrier, and Bryce, enraptured by his Animal Friends console.
“We’ve got to go, Ess.”
“No, we don’t have to go, Noah. We can still say no.”
“Do you want to say no?”
“No, it’s just nerves. We’ve come this far, so of course we should go.”
She grabbed a handful of clothes and threw them on top of the neatly folded ones already in the suitcase.
She programmed the suitca
se to follow her, picked the sleeping Jimmy up, and told Noah to take Bryce by the hand. After one last look around, she led Noah and Bryce out of the room.
General Simone met them in the lobby and led them out to a waiting taxi. A moment later, they were on the way to the spaceport, but instead of splitting off to the terminal to the shuttles, the taxi took them to the other side.
“What about our flight?” Esther asked, turning her head to look at the passenger terminal.
“We’re going to meet it now,” General Simone answered.
They were stopped by gate security, and the general passed out his credentials before the guard inputted a destination in the taxi, which dutifully accelerated out into the apron.
“We’re going on that?” Esther asked as the taxi stopped in front of a small, but modern, space yacht.
“That’s our ride,” the general said.
“Who’s is it?” Noah asked as they walked over to the lift.
“It’s a rental.”
“A rental? And who’s paying for it?”
“There isn’t much else for me to do with my money,” the general said with a shrug as he swiped open the lift gate.
Unless the Confederation is paying for it, Noah thought.
Noah still didn’t know what this was all about, but Esther’s theory did have merit. There were holes big enough to drive a lorry through it, but it would explain some of what as going on.
The lift only had to go up ten meters to the hatch, and the five of them entered the ship. Sergeant Major Çağlar turned to look at them from the controls.
“Takes me back, Sergeant Major, to the last time you flew us,” Esther said as she put Jimmy’s carrier on the deck.
The memory came to Noah, flooding back with a tsunami’s force. He’d thought his father was a dead man back then, having traded his life for theirs and ordering the sergeant major to fly them off the Earth’s moon and out of the Federation’s grip. His father hadn’t died though, thanks to his miraculous escape. It had taken the Federation almost two more years to finish the job with their father, this time murdering their mother as well.
“That was a sad day, General,” he said before turning back to his controls and requested clearance.
“So, where are we going, General?” Noah asked Simone, anxious to change the subject.
“Wait one,” he said, putting his fingers to his lips, then pointing the same finger around the cabin.
Noah couldn’t help but roll his eyes. The cloak-and-dagger stuff was getting too melodramatic. He led Bryce to a seat, which took a moment to conform to his small body, gave the boy his console, and took his own seat. Within ten minutes, Sergeant Major Çağlar took the ship up off the planet’s surface.
I can get used to this, Noah thought as he looked at the display of the dwindling planet. No waiting for a shuttle, no slow ascent to the ship, no waiting for the rest of the ship’s passengers to load. Instead of arriving at the spaceport ten hours before their orbiting ship launched, they were journey-bound twenty minutes after reaching security.
“OK, we’re off the planet, and you had to have filed a flight plan. So where are we going?”
Sergeant Major Çağlar said “Fresh Beginnings” without taking his eyes off his readouts.
Fresh Beginnings? That doesn’t tell me anything.
He checked Bryce, who was still engrossed with whatever it was that a donkey says, so he did something that all lifer Marines acquired the skill to do. He closed his eyes and, 20 seconds later, was fast asleep.
FRESH BEGINNINGS
Esther
“Mama, I’m hungry,” Bryce said, his voice a clear indication that he was about done with this adventure.
“How much farther?” Esther asked.
Sergeant Major Çağlar said, “About half-an-hour, General. We’re getting closer.
She was regretting bringing the kids, but she hadn’t wanted to leave them on Kukson either with Shiloh and Miriam or in child care, and General Simone had assured them that the trip offered no danger. In fact, when she’d broached the subject with him, he’d seemed even eager for the two children to come along. That seemed odd if this was, in fact, a meeting with the Confeds, which Esther was becoming more and more convinced of.
Fresh Beginnings was not a Federation World; it was an independent world with two separate pseudo-governments more like handling companies rather than true governments. According to what Esther had pulled off the undernet on the trip over, it was very corporation-friendly, and companies could do pretty much as they pleased. Contract workers were brought in from every corner of human space, and regulations were minimal, at best—which made it a perfect place for a clandestine meeting, in Esther’s opinion. There were large numbers of both Federation and Confed citizens coming and going, and entry formalities mainly consisted of scanning for weapons.
“Here,” she said, rummaging through her purse and pulling out a fruit globe to give to Bryce.
She ignored Noah rolling his eyes. He’d lectured her enough on the need for natural foods for growing children, and she didn’t have time for that now. Bryce liked the fabricated balls of fruity flavor, and she didn’t want him fussing.
She put her arm around her oldest and looked out the window. The planet was heavily industrialized, so she was surprised at how much farmland and even raw nature they passed. With such supposed lax regulations, she’d expected to see a polluted landscape. Instead, with large expanses of what looked to be natural evergreen forest interspaced with neatly laid-out fields of crops, it was actually quite pretty, at least along their route.
After another 20 minutes, the sergeant major took control of their hover and off the main highway. He slowly drove along a narrow dirt road for a couple of klicks, through a copse of trees, and emerged into a mid-sized farm. A harvester was working a field to their left as they drove by, snagging Bryce’s attention.
“Look!” he said, pointing.
“That’s how we get real food,” Noah told him, trying to catch Esther’s eye.
“You don’t even know what that is, Noah, so don’t go acting like some sort of back-to-nature expert,” she told him.
“It’s peanuts,” Sergeant Major Çağlar said as he drove.
Peanuts, Sergeant Major? Did you just happen to recognize them, or have you been here before?
“Yeah, it’s peanuts,” Noah said in an unsuccessful attempt to sound like he already knew that.
The sergeant major slowed the hover to a stop a good 30 meters from what looked to be a small farmhouse. It looked so normal, and Esther thought that made it a good meeting location.
“Wait here,” General Simone said as he and Sergeant Major Çağlar got out of the hover. “Watch for my signal, please.”
“And these two?” Esther asked, tilting her head at her two boys.
“If I tell you to come in, bring them in too.”
That puzzled her a bit. If they were meeting in a city somewhere, the two boys could be a sort of camouflage, but out here, in the middle of nowhere?
“Did you catch the ‘if I tell you to come in,’” Noah asked as the two men walked up to the house.
Esther had been wondering why she should bring in the kids and she’d missed that. But he had said “if.”
“I thought this was a done deal, whatever it is. Do you think there’s a possibility that we’ll just leave?” she asked.
“I hope not, but this is getting weird.”
“‘Getting’ weird? This has been weird from the beginning.”
She sat back, her arm still around Bryce, suddenly unsure of herself. The longer they waited, the more she was second-guessing herself. How could she have brought the two boys along?
She was about to tell the hover to return to the city when the front door of the house opened, and General Simone stepped out. He raised an arm and motioned for them to come in.
“This is it,” Noah said. “You still want to go?”
She looked at her two boys and almos
t said no. But as Noah had said back on Tarawa, it was a matter of trust, and she did trust her father’s two closest friends.
“Let’s do it.”
She picked up Jimmy out of his carrier while Noah unhooked Bryce from his seat harness. Together, they got out of the hover and walked, shoulder to shoulder, up the drive and to the door. General Simone smiled and stepped back, one arm spread out in invitation for them to enter.
The smell hit Esther first, the smell of decay, almost, of something wrong. She almost recoiled as she took in the darkened room. An old man stood to the left, his eyes boring into her. On a couch in the back of the room lay a frail old woman, and Esther immediately knew that the smell came from her. This poor woman was dying.
“What are we doing here?” Esther asked General Simone when the woman opened her eyes and looked right at her.
“Esther, Noah,” the woman said, joy in her weak voice.
“Mother!” Esther screamed as she ran across the room and threw herself, Jimmy and all, on the woman’s breast.
Noah
Shocked when Esther ran across the cluttered room and threw herself on the woman, it took Noah a moment to process what she had just said.
Mother?
The woman put her frail arms around Esther, and Jimmy, caught between them, began to cry. Noah took a step towards them, still confused.
“Noah,” the old man to the side of the room said quietly.
Noah turned to him, his mind trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
Did Ess say “Mother?”
Things began to click into place. Somehow, that woman lying on the bed was their mother. But that was impossible. She’d been with his father when the last remnants of the old Federation had assassinated him. If she was alive, then . . .
Coda: A United Federation Marine Corps Short Story Page 2