Hella

by David Gerrold

  “I’m not a little girl,” J’mee said stiffly. “And it’s not a super-power. It’s a deliberate manipulation. It’s a nasty cheat. It’s a pretense of weakness to disarm the authority of the patriarchy. But it works. Terrified tears always outrank chest-beating. But we have to get HARLIE into the grid, so let’s cheat.”

  Captain Skyler looked to Madam Coordinator. “I will concede the point. But it still scares the hell out of me. Are you sure you want to authorize this?”

  She looked right back at him. “Do you have a better idea? Does anyone have a better idea?”

  “Yes,” said Commander Khuri. “I do.”

  Everyone looked to her.

  “Second breakfast,” she said. “Or is it lunchtime already? Whatever. We’ve all been working so hard on this we’ve lost track of time. Let’s take a meal break.” As everybody rose, she said, “Madam Coordinator, Captain, if I could speak to you privately? And HARLIE too . . . ?” They disappeared down the hall together, the monkey toddling after.

  It was a difficult meal. I wasn’t hungry, no one seemed to be hungry, but everyone was insisting that everyone else eat. Nobody talked about the mission. But everyone agreed to stop calling Layton “Coordinator.” Charles said that he didn’t deserve the title, he hadn’t earned it, he’d stolen it. So they talked about Layton for a while, laughing and making jokes about all the bad things they wished they could do to him, each one trying to come up with the most painful and outrageous punishment, or even the silliest—until HARLIE returned. He jumped up on the table, listened for a moment, then said, “Did you all forget due process?”

  “Huh?” J’mee and Charles looked at each other, confused.

  “Go ahead,” HARLIE said to me. “Tell them.”

  I cleared my breath and quoted, “‘We have due process not to protect the criminals, but to protect us from becoming criminals. Whatever any bad-actor might do, we must remain a nation of laws—it is the only guarantee we have against becoming bad-actors ourselves.’”

  “Who said that?” Charles asked.

  “Everybody,” I said. “It’s in the Charter Conversations—all the documents and emails that went back and forth when the Colony Charter was written. And it’s been repeated a lot, ever since. Especially wherever people start talking hatred. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves. If we’re the good guys, we have to act like it. It’s a very short step from nasty conversation to nasty action.”

  “Oh,” said Charles.

  And that pretty much ended that discussion. It wasn’t fun anymore—not after we understood that we were wishing pain onto another person. Layton wasn’t hearing it and even if he could, he wouldn’t care. So why were we wasting our time on it?

  After a while, J’mee looked down the hall, where Captain Skyler and Madam Coordinator and Commander Khuri had disappeared. “They’ve been gone a while. I wonder what they’re talking about.”

  We didn’t have much longer to wait. Before we finished our second round of sandwiches, the three of them came back and sat down at our table. “We need you to understand something,” said Captain Skyler. He looked to me. “Especially you, Kyle. Because you’re the one most at risk. This is not a ride-along. The three of you are going to be on your own. There won’t be a support team with you, and if there’s a breakdown, there’s no one who can come and save you.” He looked to Charles and J’mee as well. “Do all three of you understand just how dangerous this could be?”

  “Will we get eaten by carnosaurs?” I asked.

  Captain Skyler looked at me. “No, but—”

  “Then it’s not dangerous. Carnosaurs are dangerous. Layton is just stupid.”

  Captain Skyler looked annoyed. “Yes, very clever. Now shut up and listen to me, Kyle. Never never never underestimate the power of stupid. That’s how we got into this mess. And it’s not just Layton. It’s all those people who stand with him. And some of them are pretty smart.”

  “Not smart enough to see how stupid he is—”

  “But smart enough to see the advantage in following him. They’re the ones who are dangerous.” Captain Skyler softened his voice. “Kyle, you have a lot of history to learn. Not Hella history—Earth history. With all the intelligence all those people had, with all the history they could have learned from—they didn’t. And apparently we didn’t either.”

  Madam Coordinator stopped him and turned to us. “We need you three to understand just how risky this is. You could get hurt. Other people could get hurt. This is scary business. So if you don’t want to do this, we can try to figure out something else.”

  Charles spoke first. “You all went off and talked for a long time. But you couldn’t figure out another way, could you?”

  Madam Coordinator said, “You’re right, Charles. We couldn’t. But we do want to make one change in the plan. We don’t want HARLIE to broadcast the video, not right away—” Before Charles could interrupt, before anyone could, she held up a hand. “Listen to me. We don’t know where Captain Boynton is, but we don’t think he’s been disappeared. So if you can find Captain Boynton, go to him first. Tell him what he needs to know. Tell him that we survived, and we’re in hiding. Do not tell him about the exiles. And most definitely do not tell him about X-Station, understand? Just tell Captain Boynton we’re alive and what’s on the video. He’ll know what to do. He can get you to the transceiver. But he’ll need time to organize. Because as soon as that video goes live, there’ll be chaos. Boynton will be the necessary authority. He can even invoke the Suspension Clause.”

  “Unless—” I raised a hand. They all looked at me. I took a breath. “Unless, what if Layton is holding Captain Boynton hostage somehow. Like not letting the colonists land. Or something like that. They can’t stay on the Cascade forever, can they?”

  Captain Skyler answered. “No, they can’t. And yes, we did consider that possibility. But we still think you need to go to Boynton before you do anything else. We trust him. But if you can’t find Boynton—” He exchanged a glance with Madam Coordinator before turning back to us. “—you might want to consider telling J’mee’s dad. We don’t know where his loyalty is, but if he’s as smart as J’mee says, then maybe, just maybe he’ll recognize the danger of letting Layton remain in power.”

  J’mee shook her head. She didn’t look happy about that. “My daddy thinks about business more than he thinks about anything else—”

  “Thank you, yes. We know that,” Madam Coordinator said. “So look, all of you. This is a big responsibility. It’s lot to put on your shoulders, but if you can’t find Captain Boynton, or if you think he’s been compromised, or if you’re not sure about J’mee’s dad, or if you have any doubts at all—then you do whatever you must to get that video out. If you absolutely must, then go ahead, have HARLIE hack into the grid. Even if it means total chaos. But unless and until the whole colony knows the truth, Layton will remain in power. That would be an even bigger disaster.”

  Captain Skyler looked to each of us. “So what do you want to do?”

  J’mee and Charles looked at each other. They both nodded. “We’re going,” they said. Then they looked to me.

  I looked to Jeremy and Jamie. Neither of them had said much until now, but now Jamie said, “You can do this, Kyle. I believe in you.” Then Jeremy reached over and squeezed my hand. “Go get him, kiddo.” That got him a strange look from Jamie.

  I took a breath and said, “We can do this. I can do this.”

  Commander Khuri prodded Captain Skyler. “Don’t forget the distractions.”

  “Oh, right—” He fumbled in a pocket, then tossed a handful of chips on the table. “Here are some decoys. Stash them in your pockets, your shoes, your hair, your underwear. They’re all encrypted, mostly garbage. If they search you, if they ask what’s on the chips, you don’t know. You’ll be telling the truth. Where did you get them? You found them in the caves. That’s true too. T
hey’ll try and decode them. Even a Class-9 hacking bot won’t find anything in there—not for a couple months anyway, but the embedded malware will leak the video into the grid. That’s Plan B.”

  “HARLIE did that?”

  Commander Khuri said, “This is X-Station. We’ve had fifty years to study the grid and all of its weaknesses and loopholes.” And then she smiled. “But yes, HARLIE helped.”

  The monkey stood up and took a bow.

  * * *

  —

  We broke for second lunch—I think it was second lunch. X-Station doesn’t run on the same clock. They don’t have to. They run on three different clocks all at the same time, depending on the job. One clock is four and four—four hours on, four hours off. Another is six and six. The third is eight and eight. But there are variations. Six and eight, four and six. And it turns out a lot of the exiles work on their off hours too, some of their jobs are monitoring, others are maintenance, and there’s a whole mini-section that works directly with a select core of people in Winterland. X-Station is not self-sufficient. Yet.

  But we were off the clock. Or on it. We were on our own schedule, hardly breaking at all, just talking and planning, sometimes arguing, but mostly working and rehearsing our separate parts, all of us trying to figure out all the stuff that might happen and what we should do if it did.

  It took a while, but it was necessary. Every part of the plan was examined, where we would go and how we would get there, the best route we should take, what to say, where to say it, and most important, how to make the most noise. That was the key to the whole thing. We had to create so much attention that no one could hustle us off to some place where we could be conveniently disappeared.

  We had to be the lost children running home—hysterical, terrified, and screaming about horrible monsters in the dark.

  They’d believe us. They’d have to. There are things living in the lava tubes. Not the steeper tubes higher on the cinder cone, but the shallower ones down in the foothills, where there was topsoil and tree roots and seepage—and a lot of things using the caves for shelter too. So it wasn’t impossible that there were things that fed on the things that fed on the things that lived in the tubes. It wasn’t impossible that some things had evolved and explored upward. It wasn’t impossible that there were real booger-jacks.

  But the whole colony had to hear us. We had to make noise, a lot of noise, so much noise that we’d create an uproar—an uproar so big that Coordinator Layton couldn’t escape it.

  Finally, Commander Khuri interrupted, “I think we need to stop. We’re over-rehearsing these kids. They’re going to be scared enough without our help. We need it real, not a performance. Let’s take a meal-break and send them off. Who likes rice, beans, and noodles?”

  Jeremy cooked. That was a treat for everyone. He says that cooking is gift-giving. Every meal is art, but you eat the art, so you have to start again just a few hours later, but that means you get to give another gift, so cooking is the best way of saying, “I love you,” over and over, every day. He says it’s one of the best jobs in the world, because you can even eat your mistakes. Jeremy must have grabbed fresh vegetables on the way out, and some fruit as well, because he served salad and dessert too. At one point, Jamie grinned, leaned over and whispered, “This is so good if you don’t marry him, I will!”

  “No, you won’t!” I said right back.

  And then, before we had even finished burping our approval, it was time. Captain Skyler smeared some dirt on us and Jamie ripped my longshirt in two places. Madam Coordinator wished us luck, Jamie hugged me, Captain Skyler promoted me to Class-4 Something, but I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone, not until he could come back and make it official, and then we were on our way. Commander Khuri led the way.

  We padded down polished corridors, then rough ones, and then we were in a lava tube. Charles hesitated for a moment—

  “What’s the matter?” J’mee asked.

  “I don’t like tubes,” he said. “I really don’t.”

  “Do you want to go back?”

  “No,” he said. “We have to do this.” And he pushed forward.

  We followed bobbing flashlights for the longest time, first through lava tubes, then through broken caverns and a confusing network of unfinished tunnels, then more lava tubes—the Winterland cinder cone was immense and we were deep inside it.

  Outside, the northeast slope was a rumpled landscape, hundreds of layers of lava flows had hardened here. A few hundred thousand of years of magma piled higher and higher until the tectonic pressure shifted farther south and the towering cone fell dormant. Deep below, it still smoldered. Occasionally it rumbled in its sleep, but it was dying, its body slowly cooling.

  Inside though, the cinder cone was riddled with a labyrinth of tubes and tunnels, another physical effect of Hella’s lighter gravity. The colony had never fully explored these depths. After the twenty-third mapping bot had disappeared into the depths, Winterland stopped trying to map the northeast jumble. But it made sense now—of course, the bots had disappeared. X-Station caught them and shut them down.

  Finally, we stopped. Commander Khuri gathered us all close into a tiny circle of light. “Now listen, listen good. You must never tell anyone where you’ve been. You must never say anything to anyone about X-Station. No matter who asks. Just say, ‘I don’t know. It was dark.’ This is the most important thing to remember.” She looked to each of us. “Can I trust you?”

  “Stinky promise,” I said.

  “Stinky promise?” She looked confused. Jamie hooked his finger against mine to show her. “Oh,” she said. “Yes. Stinky promise.” She hooked her finger to seal the deal. She did the same with Charles and J’mee.

  “All right,” she said. “This is where we leave you. From here, you go down, it’s a long way, and you’re going to wonder if maybe you’re lost, but just keep going. Jeremy will be with you, he knows the way, and you won’t get lost. Remember, you’re coming out through the ventilation tunnels, it’s going to be cold and windy, maybe a little wet, but it’s the safest way. Once you kick out the final screen, you’ll know where you are and you’ll know where to go. Jeremy will take you as far as he can, but after that he might have to disappear. Don’t worry, he’ll be safe. But if they ask you about him, you don’t know where he is, you didn’t see him. Maybe he got lost searching? You don’t know. Don’t volunteer anything, don’t make anything up, you don’t know anything, remember that. That way you won’t have to lie. Any last questions?”

  We all looked at each other in the gloom. The adventure had suddenly gotten serious. With all the dirt on their faces, Charles and J’mee looked like zombies, I probably looked even worse. “It’ll be good,” Charles said. He smiled uneasily. “I’ve been through worse.” To me, he said, “More tubes. I’ll tell you about it later.”

  Captain Skyler spoke then. He looked grim and unhappy. “All right. Enough talk. It’s time.” He pointed ahead. As if that was enough.

  “Okay, kiddo,” Jamie said. “Go be a hero.” He hugged me tight. Then Jeremy rumpled my hair and gave me a gentle nudge. “Let’s roll,” he said.

  We had to circle the long way around the interior of the cinder cone. It would be a very long walk. We had flashlights, that helped, but the tunnels were uneven, the floors were bumpy, and it was too easy to lose our footing and stumble. It was rough going. I fell and skinned my knees a couple times, and a couple more times I slammed against a wall and skinned my good elbow.

  We had to stop and rest every twenty or thirty minutes, but nobody complained. It was almost a joke that we wouldn’t have to pretend to be tired and hungry and thirsty when we finally kicked our way out. We already looked terrible, and we felt even worse. By the time we got to Winterland, we’d be close to collapse. If they didn’t send us straight to Med-Bay, then they’d have to bring Doctor Rhee to us. That was part of the plan too. The more people who we
re in the room, the harder it would be for Coordinator Layton to hide us away. We had Plan B and Plan C and Plan Whatever. I’d lost count. HARLIE would know, but we’d decided not to talk to him unless it was absolutely necessary. He had to pretend to be a broken monkey.

  We didn’t do a lot of talking. Mostly we focused on picking our way carefully. This would be a bad place to fall down and break another arm. Or worse, a leg. If one of us got hurt, it would be hours before help could get here. Someone would have to go all the way back to X-Station to get a rescue team to come down with a stretcher. Communication was impossible this deep.

  But when we stopped, we talked. Not too much though. There was a lot of dust in the lower tunnels, so Jeremy had us wearing filter masks so we could all breathe easier.

  Once though, we had to stop because J’mee started crying. We weren’t sure why, so Charles went and sat with her. He put his arm around her shoulder and she sobbed into his shoulder. Jeremy took me a little way down the tunnel so they could have some privacy. We sat down side by side, and he held my hand and neither of us said anything for a while.

  After a bit, Charles and J’mee joined us. She was still wiping her eyes. Jeremy asked, “Are you all right?”

  J’mee was honest. She said, “No. Not really. I mean—I’m all right physically. But . . .” She sniffled. “This is all my fault. I should have said something and I didn’t.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “My daddy. He’s not really a millionaire, but he knows how to move money around, other people’s money especially. So he bought up a bunch of stuff, a lot of it on margin, and filled I don’t know how many cargo pods on the Cascade. Seeds, lots of seeds and bulbs and cuttings, genetics and spices, meat stocks and grow tanks, tools of all kinds, fabbers and rare earths, I don’t know what all, even a lot of specialty foods and drinks. He figured having all that stuff on Hella, we’d be rich.”

  Jeremy nodded. “I’ve seen the manifest. Everybody has. All of that stuff becomes the property of the whole colony.”