Hella

by David Gerrold

  But maybe the people on the Cascade had somehow heard about Councilor Layton’s resolution. I hadn’t said anything, but there were a lot of chatter and a lot of emails going back and forth now and the news of his proposals must have spread. Maybe the Cascade people had decided among themselves to talk only about the benefits they would be bringing to the colony, so we would get excited about having them land.

  Down here, Councilor Layton’s resolution had been formally introduced, but never voted on. It was tabled for further discussion, to be taken up again after the migration. But Councilor Layton and his people were still talking about the dangers of letting all these new people in, so there were a lot of conversations everywhere about the whole situation, back and forth. Nobody was really sure what would happen if it came up for a vote. Mom said it was bad politics and even after it was voted down (that’s what she expected), there would be a lot of bad feelings everywhere. We could expect some rough times. Mom told me not to worry, which was probably the wrong thing to say, because when people say, “Don’t worry,” they’re admitting that there’s something to worry about.

  But worrying is a waste of time and energy. You can only do what’s in front of you. That’s what Captain Skyler says. So I went back to my mail.

  J’mee thought her dad might be in the first landing party. He had purchased a large part of the Cascade’s cargo space, sixteen or seventeen pods, and he wanted to confer with the Captain and the Coordinator as soon as possible about the best place to store his resources.

  Trent asked me to send him as much information as I could about the gardens, at both Winterland and Summerland. Gary made a similar request about the kennels and farms. They were easy requests, we had lots of records on file, so I promised to make a personal video for each of them.

  Charles wrote a second time asking what my favorite music was. He wanted to put together a special concert for all the people on Hella, his way of saying thank you for such a wonderful welcome. I didn’t think our welcome was all that wonderful. All we’d done so far was tell them how hard life on Hella was going to be and send them scary pictures of giant animals attacking, killing, and eating other giant animals.

  There was another note from Harlie, curious about how we monitored all our drones and probes. He wanted to know if he could connect to them and start studying Hella’s ecology. But Captain Skyler told me not to tell him, just pretend he never asked. He said I shouldn’t get too involved with this Harlie person, not yet, but he didn’t say why.

  Jamie sent me some videos of himself and Emily-Faith working on the Summerland Lockdown team, mostly securing shutters on the pods of the last group of evacuees. Jamie said they’d be working security right up until the day the first big winds came sweeping across the plains.

  If they were lucky, it wouldn’t be a dust storm—but a lot of dust was coming in from the eastern continent, a lot of it was organic byproducts from the thick jungles in Hella’s subtropical zones, so wherever it settled, it helped to fertilize the plains. It carried a lot of seeds and bugs and even little insect eggs and larvae too. But even the most aggressive of these invasive species would have a hard time surviving anywhere in the path of the migrating leviathans. The saurs were a traveling disaster zone. Even so, Mom’s colleagues wanted someday to study the evolutionary differences of the plants and animals on the eastern and western continents.

  Somebody at Bitch Canyon sent me an anonymous video of Marley Layton mucking around in something that looked like a giant latrine. She was up to her knees in guano. Apparently they were taking core samples because somebody had the bright idea that studying layers of poop would give them an idea of the genetics of previous generations of Bitch things. Whatever the case, it seemed an appropriate job for Marley.

  I forwarded a copy to Jamie and to Mom and to Captain Skyler, because I thought they should see it, but nobody else. I didn’t mind if Marley Layton was going to be embarrassed, she deserved it. I just didn’t think I should be the one passing it around. But whoever filmed it must have sent it to a lot of people, because it was all over the network within an hour.

  After Marley was sent off to Bitch Canyon Station, Jamie told me that the best thing to do was pretend that Marley didn’t exist anymore and get on with everything that’s important to me. Jamie said all the stuff that everybody says when they think they’re being wise. Why give Marley a room rent-free in my head? Hating someone is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies. That all sounds very good, but it’s a lot easier to say it than do it.

  There was a lot of email from adults on the Cascade asking me to video what the houses on Hella were like. Houses? Ha ha. Mostly it was dorms or barracks or converted landing pods, unless they wanted to join work crews and build their own. And they had to build them according to colony plans, too. We couldn’t have badly built structures coming apart in the first big wind.

  Some emails asked why the various roads between Summerland and Winterland weren’t properly paved. Those three were easy to answer. “Please compute the cost of paving three thousand kilometers of four-lane highway, plus bridges and tunnels, and compare that to the Gross Annual Resources of the colony.”

  Yes, there is a tunnel project in the planning stages. One of the points in its favor is that we could put strong hatches at either end and use the length of the tunnel for emergency storage or even emergency shelter if anything awful ever happened to one of the stations. Or we could even expand it with side tunnels and make it a third major station. A lot of people like that idea, more so after the Break-In. If enough of the Cascade colonists could be assigned to the work force, we could begin within a year. But like everything else, it’s a matter of resources. We’d still have to feed them and shelter them while they were working and that would mean establishing and supporting an extensive remote station.

  But a lot of people, like Councilor Layton, would rather start an expansion station on the eastern continent. Captain Skyler opposes that, not just because it’s a bad idea, but because he’s pretty sure that Councilor Layton wants to be in charge of that station and set up his own community, and then, as soon as it’s self-sufficient, declare independence. Captain Skyler isn’t against independence, but he says that when one thing divides itself into two things, then the next thing that happens is that the two things start fighting each other. Divorce for example.

  Captain Skyler thinks Councilor Layton is always trying to divide people so he can control them, but Councilor Layton says that Captain Skyler wants to keep everybody in one place so he can control them. It’s an argument that I’m not sure I understand. Last year, Councilor Layton and his caucus formed their own Expansion Committee and picked out the locations on the other continent where they wanted to build their new Summerland and Winterland, but that got voted down so Captain Skyler says that Councilor Layton’s latest resolution is a kind of revenge. I don’t understand that either. I don’t get revenge. Hurting back just means two people are hurt.

  Another email asked why the stations are named Summerland and Winterland. That was easier to answer. You have to look at how severely the planet is tilted. The intense sunlight heats a wide band around Hella’s equator, keeping that entire range hot and uncomfortable, all the way up to unlivable. We call it the Scorch Belt. And mostly we stay away from it.

  Summerland is in the far north and it’s called Summerland because that’s where we go to spend our summers to avoid the intense heat of the season. Winterland is in the south, closer to the Scorch Belt, because that’s where we spend our winters, to avoid the incredible cold of the north. Only the maintenance teams stay on-site. More people could stay, hunkering down against the extreme weather, but it uses up a lot of resources. And it’s better for the colony to have two self-sufficient installations.

  I’ve never seen carbon dioxide frost up close, and I don’t want to see it up close. I’ve never seen the firestorms of the ultra-tropics up close either, a
nd I don’t want to see them anywhere but on a big display. But that’s Hella. We have Hella-weather. Everything is Hella-bigger and Hella-meaner and Hella-more ferocious. And that’s how we define Hellacious.

  After I finished going through my mail, I started reading the comments on the discussion forums. It was very uncomfortable. Some of the Cascade colonists weren’t happy with my last round of videos. They said that Hella looked unfriendly. Some of them said that this was not the planet they had been promised. And a few even said that they might not land at all, they might stay on the ship and go back to Earth. Except the ship wasn’t going back. Not any time soon. And Captain Boynton wasn’t sure if there was anything to go back to. So who knew what they were going to do?

  This was probably not a good conversation for them to have, because Councilor Layton could use their doubts to justify his resolution, like, “See? These people don’t even want to be here.”

  After second supper, I called Jamie to ask him if he’d seen those messages too. He had. Everybody had. I wasn’t the only one reading those comments and receiving emails. It wasn’t going down well. A lot of people had been working too hard for too long to have any patience with the complaining of newcomers—especially people who hadn’t even landed yet and were already griping. But Jamie said I shouldn’t worry about it. “Look up the history. This happens all the time. There are always people who are unhappy and want to go back. And, mostly, we let them. We can’t carry any dead weight.”

  “But the Cascade isn’t going back.”

  “Yes. That’s the problem.”

  “So what are we going to do about it?”

  “Nobody knows. That’s what everyone is arguing about. What are we going to do with people who don’t want to be here and we can’t send back? Nobody knows.”

  “Is this why Councilor Layton doesn’t want them to land?”

  “It’s part of it. And it’s certainly something he can use to support his resolution.” Then Jamie stopped himself before he said the next sentence. “No, never mind.”

  “What.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Jamie—”

  “I said it’s nothing.”

  He didn’t want to say, but I kept asking, “Tell me anyway. Tell me.” Jamie says it’s very annoying when I do that. But sometimes it works.

  Finally, he cleared his throat that way he does when he’s about to say something I won’t like.

  “Okay, I’ll tell you, Kyle, but it’s gonna make you angry. Are you gonna manage yourself?”

  “I will. I promise. Tell me.”

  He took a breath. “I was going to say—don’t take this the wrong way, Kyle, you’re doing a great job—but Councilor Layton blames you a little bit. Your videos are showing them a lot of uncomfortable stuff, how dangerous Hella can be and how hard everybody has to work. It’s upsetting the people on the Cascade. They’re getting scared and depressed. They’re not excited about landing anymore. They’re worried.”

  “But that’s stupid.” And Jamie was right. It did offend me. “Those people on the Cascade, they need to learn as much as they can before they get here. This is about helping them survive—it’s about helping everybody survive.”

  Jamie held up a hand to stop me. “Kyle, it’s not your fault. They arrived with expectations. It probably started before they even left Earth. They saw all the pretty pictures and somehow made it up in their heads that life here was going to be easy and fun. No matter how many times the orientation teams told them how much hard work was needed just to stay alive from one season to the next, maybe they just didn’t want to hear it. And then you sent them your pictures that Hella demands Hella-work and they—well, those were some pretty scary pictures, kiddo, so some of the new colonists are complaining that nobody told them that Hella was dangerous. But what did they expect? A vacation? So, yeah—that’s why some of the colonists on the Cascade don’t want to land.”

  “But Councilor Layton doesn’t want them to land anyway. So why would he blame me for my videos? I don’t understand.”

  Jamie took another breath. “Councilor Layton likes to keep everybody arguing with each other. It doesn’t matter what about, as long as they’re arguing. Because once people start arguing, they start hating. And if he can get people hating each other, then he can control that hate. That’s the way he thinks.”

  “That’s crazy!”

  “Yes, it is. Real crazy. I think there’s something wrong with the man. Maybe he’s afraid of not being important. But that’s why Captain Skyler is going to stand for a seat on the Council—to keep Councilor Layton from doing more stupid stuff.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Jamie understands the political stuff better than me. Politics is people—and people aren’t logical. I prefer logic. It’s simpler. Jamie says there’s an emotional logic, but it’s nothing like real logic. I’m not sure I can understand two different kinds of logic. Not at the same time.

  Jamie said, “It’s nothing to worry about right now. Councilor Layton doesn’t have the votes. And he can’t do anything by himself. So he’s just a big unpleasant noise. And I don’t think you need to worry about what the new people are saying either. That’s just noise too. Once they get down here, they’ll learn what’s so. Everybody does. You work, you eat. You don’t work, you don’t eat. That’s what the Passage Ceremony means, doesn’t it?”

  What Jamie was saying was true, and he was right about the other thing too. It was making me uncomfortable. Why can’t people just do what’s in front of them? Why do people have to have so many stupid conversations instead? The work is obvious, isn’t it?

  I liked most of the people I’d talked to on the Cascade. Maybe some of them were asking dumb questions, but a lot of the people on the earlier pilgrimages asked those same dumb questions without having anyone down here to answer them. They had to figure it out for themselves after they landed. My videos were supposed to help.

  “I wish you were coming to my Passage Ceremony.”

  “I’ll be watching it from here.”

  “It won’t be the same.”

  “I know. You’ll have to let Mom hug you. Pretend it’s from me. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Promise? Stinky Promise?” He held up his hand and hooked his finger.

  “Stinky Promise.” I did the same.

  A person’s fifth birthday is the earliest day they can be eligible for a Passage Day. Mine would be at Winterland. The Passage Ceremony means Passage-Into-Adult-Responsibility. On that day, you stop being a child and you start earning your passage on the voyage of life. You also get to vote—of course, part of that responsibility is that you have to continue your education. Education is how you earn additional certifications and move on to bigger responsibilities.

  Mom says there’s no point in building a new civilization if we forget to be civilized, if we forget our science and technology, if we forget our art and literature and music. If all we do is live instead of living large, then we’re not living at all. That’s what Mom says. I think I understand what she means. I like a lot of the music of old Earth that she plays while she works and I think I’d like to learn how to play an instrument too, maybe the piano. There’s this piece by someone called Beethoven, the Pathetique piano sonata. I like that one a lot. Maybe Charles on the Cascade can teach me.

  Finally, I asked Jamie how his work was going. It was a good way to change the subject. He said it was going well, I should look at the recordings and make a video for the Cascade. They were already expecting their first big storm of the season early next week—well, just the edge of the storm—but it promised to be pretty impressive. The second evacuation wanted to leave before it hit. It’s important for the Cascade colonists to see how all this works.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I could make a video about the evacuations and the weather—but maybe I shouldn’t. I mean, if my videos are ups
etting them, maybe I should stop.”

  “No, don’t stop. That would be giving in to Councilor Layton. But maybe you could make some happy videos, what do you think? Like the one you made at Jubilee, where everybody is laughing and dancing. Oh, and by the way, was that Jorge and Jose holding hands and wearing rosebuds?”

  “Uh, yeah. Jorge’s dad wasn’t happy about that, but both his moms laughed out loud and said it was about time. But I’m not good at happy. You know that.”

  “No, I don’t know that, Kyle.”

  “But I don’t do emotions right. That’s why some people don’t like me.”

  “No. You do emotions just fine. Your Jubilee video was good. I think you’re learning. What you don’t do is think like stupid people. That’s your super-power. That’s what bothers them. That you can out-think them.”

  “You’re not just saying that—?”

  “You’re my favorite brother. I would never lie to you. I’ll bet if you go and make some happy videos, you’ll find out just how good you really are at emotions. Think about all the good things that people have accomplished here on Hella. Show them that. We have everything on file. We have hellabytes of recordings. Look up all the good stuff you learned in history classes. You can do that, can’t you?”

  “Okay,” I said. “I can do that.”

  But I had to go off and think for a while—at least until I stopped being upset about Councilor Layton and some of the people on the Cascade, the ones who didn’t like the videos. But it wasn’t their fault. They just didn’t know, that’s all. It was my job to show them—not just the scary stuff, but the good stuff too.

  Jamie was right. Jamie was almost always right, and even when he was wrong, he was wrong for the right reasons. Talking to Jamie always makes me feel better, even when he’s telling me things I don’t want to hear.