Hella
Page 45
I looked to Doctor Rhee. She hadn’t looked at me since I was brought into the room. She didn’t look at me now.
For a moment—
Wait. What?
It never happened?
No. It was real. I was there. I saw Jamie. And Captain Skyler. And Madam Coordinator. And X-Station. And Commander Khuri.
A delusion? A hallucination?
Even the voice?
Had HARLIE planted the whole thing in my head?
No. That didn’t make sense. But it did.
The only people who could confirm it weren’t here. I said, “Where are Charles and J’mee?”
“They are secluded. They are legally juveniles and cannot testify in this hearing.”
“But they—”
“They are the victims of your hallucination, Kyle Martin. This hearing isn’t about your delusions. It’s about what needs to happen next.”
“Doctor Rhee? Tell them. Please—?”
“Kyle—” There was something weird about the way she said it. “Everything that happened. It’s all in your head. Isn’t it?”
At first I—oh, wait. She was right. It was in my head. Everything I know is in my head. What’s real and what isn’t real. It’s all inside me.
Even the voice.
I had to think about that. I had to figure this out.
By myself.
No noise.
Just me and nuance.
Finally, I looked to Mister Layton. “I understand what you are saying.”
“We cannot allow you to have any more of these hallucinations. It would create a danger to this colony. No more hallucinations. No more delusions. But—” he paused for effect “—Doctor Rhee says that we cannot turn your chip back on without your permission. It’s—” He looked annoyed. “It’s about patient consent. And because you are old enough for a Passage Ceremony, you are entitled to make the decision yourself. But this time, the implant will have to be programmed with much stronger behavioral restrictions than before. Will you consent to that?”
“What’s the alternative?”
“That hasn’t been decided. Doctor Rhee argued for this option first.”
“May I ask Doctor Rhee a question?”
“You may.”
“Doctor Rhee, is that true? That I was hallucinating?”
She stared straight into my eyes. “Kyle, listen to me. Listen carefully. Listen hard. What you experienced was real to you, wasn’t it? It’s very important that you understand that. The question—the real question is this. Was it real for anyone else? Can you tell the difference? Only you can answer that.”
Yes. Nuance. Fascinating.
I closed my eyes. I pretended I was thinking. I listened to the silence in my head. There was only me in here, no one else. But if I could still hear HARLIE, then maybe I wasn’t alone. How was he doing that? I had to think about this. I counted to myself. When I reached ten, I counted again.
“Kyle Martin, are you listening—?” That was Mister Layton.
When I opened my eyes, I turned to face him. I knew what to say. “I only want to do good for Hella colony. If that means I have to have my implant turned on, then please turn it on.”
Layton looked to Doctor Rhee. “How soon can you arrange that?”
“I can do it from here,” she said. “May I have my tablet?”
An aide passed her the unit. She took it and thumbed it to life. “Kyle, this shouldn’t hurt. But you might feel a little funny—”
She tapped.
The noise came back in a roar, a torrent of information, images and sounds and smells and tastes. A cascade, an avalanche, a tsunami, an overload, a supernova of bright whiteness, it was all too much! I screamed and passed out—
* * *
—
—and woke up in Med-Bay.
Jeremy was holding my hand.
The screen behind him glowed with the video we had made. Captain Skyler. Madam Coordinator. And Marley Layton explaining how she had hacked the lifter.
“Welcome back, kiddo. How are you feeling?”
I pointed at the screen. “It was in my head, wasn’t it?”
“Yep, that’s right.” Jeremy squeezed my hand. “HARLIE knew there was a chance you’d get caught. So he stashed a copy in your implant. Just in case. All it needed was for you to agree to turn the chip back on. It uploaded to the grid automatically. And it’ll keep replicating until Layton resigns or whatever. It’s been playing forever. I guess everyone has seen it by now.”
“Jeremy, how long was I out—?”
“A day and a half. Doctor Rhee had you locked away in intensive care. With a dozen guards at the door.”
“Guards?”
“Don’t worry. They’re from the Cascade. Remember that meeting in your apartment? Where we figured out the lifter had been sabotaged? Captain Boynton shared that information with the colonists on the Cascade. They took a vote. They authorized him to serve a warrant. Three pods of rangers came down to serve as marshals. The pods came in under the horizon. Without any guidance from Winterland. And HARLIE hid their tracking. The rangers were waiting behind on the other side of the mountain until they were needed. But then Layton put Boynton under house arrest. So the rangers never got the signal. Not until the video went live.”
“So there’s going to be a trial?”
“I don’t know.” He fell silent. He looked unhappy. “No one knows where Layton is right now. Or Bruinhilda. Or the rest of them. We think they went into the caves. But one of the trucks is missing, so maybe they’re heading outland. We’ll find them.”
“Wow.” I looked around. “Hey. Where’s my mom?”
“She’s down at the docks right now. But she’s been sitting by your bedside for a day and a half. She only left because Captain Skyler is bringing Madam Coordinator and all the others home. She wants to be there for Jamie and Emily-Faith. And Captain Skyler, of course. Captain Boynton invoked the Suspension Clause and the High Court put everything on hold until Madam Coordinator arrives. There’s gonna be an emergency session. But the court will probably reappoint her. A lot of people are going to ask a lot of questions. Nobody is sure how to answer some of them yet. Because there are some things nobody wants to talk about, but I think we’re going to have to. It’s going to get interesting. A lot of things are going to be different. You woke up just in time.”
I sat up. “Hey—”
“What?”
I put my arms around Jeremy and hugged him tight. “I’m sorry,” I said.
He looked at me. “Huh? For what?”
“I had an insight. I mean, I think it’s an insight. You tell me. They’re still your family. And I think maybe you still might feel bad for them.”
Jeremy said, “Yes. That was an insight. Thank you, Kyle. And yes, I do feel something. I feel sad. My dad is a very smart man. He could have been a great man if he hadn’t been so . . . so stupid. So, yes. I feel sorry for him. And even for Bruinhilda. She wanted more than anyone could give her. But they got what they chose—” He pulled me back into the hug. “And I’m going to get what I choose.”
* * *
—
It took a few days for everything to get sorted out.
Some of the rangers from the Cascade were also medics, so they wouldn’t let us leave until we had all been scanned and cleared. That was a nuisance, but necessary. I didn’t know what they were checking for, but medics don’t scare me anymore.
The weather truck arrived—there were pictures on all the walls. They told a story about how the storm had knocked a lot of branches down and they were stuck in the purple forest until they could fab the necessary tools for clearing the way, but some of us knew better. That didn’t explain why they hadn’t logged in, they just said they couldn’t get through, maybe it was the storm? I guessed Commander Khur
i had given them the speech too. But Madam Coordinator whispered to Jeremy and Jamie and me that X-Station was going to disappear for a while anyway, and the official report would probably be sealed for a long time.
There were a lot of reunions. A lot of people were crying, Jeremy said they were crying for joy. I remember Mom hugging Jamie for a long time. Then she hugged me, which was all right with me, this time anyway. Then she went back to hugging Jamie. Somewhere in there, she also hugged Captain Skyler and kissed him too. Like I said, there was a lot of crying.
Madam Coordinator told us not to worry about the Laytons or any of their people. They were going to be exiled to Misery Point. If they worked, we’d send them supplies. If they didn’t work, we wouldn’t. She said it was the best the Council could come up with.
J’mee’s dad was very upset that Mr. Layton was no longer a Coordinator, or even a Councilor. Her dad had been negotiating some sort of special arrangement for his supplies and equipment, and now he’d lost whatever advantage he’d thought his wealth had given him. There was no evidence to suggest that he was part of the Laytons’ plot, but just the same it didn’t turn out well for him. There was enough stink of collusion that he had to donate almost his entire seedbank to the colony to start looking like a hero again. But he was allowed to keep his flower seeds. J’mee said that would probably be enough for him to rebuild his fortune. It would take a while, and we’d have to allocate farm space, but people really like fresh flowers. And on Hella, they get big.
Madam Coordinator won the special election. Lilla-Jack and Mom both stood for seats on the Council as well, and both of them won. There was no more talk of Genetic Protection or any other part of Mr. Layton’s plan.
In the spring, the Cascade began dropping pods as fast as we could open up new apartments and dorms. At least a hundred of the new colonists went to work expanding the farms so there would be enough food for everyone. Some of them also went to work fabbing new fabbers and new bots so we could continue the expansion of Winterland. Later, we’d transfer some of the bots up to Summerland for that expansion. A lot of the newcomers were impatient to see the leviathans in person.
Jamie and Emily-Faith moved in together. That was nice.
Mom started showing the first hint of a baby-bump. So she and Captain Skyler had a big beautiful wedding.
With chocolate cake.
* * *
—
And I moved in with Jeremy.
We decided to keep things the way they were. For now anyway. We didn’t have to decide anything until we wanted to decide it.
It was an easy decision to make. Because the noise isn’t noise anymore. It’s just a much quieter part of me. Useful when I need it. Silent when I don’t.
So I guess this is what happiness feels like. I’m still learning, but I could get used to it.
* * *
—
And the monkey—? We never found him. We searched. We checked the monitors. We scanned the entire station. It was like he never existed.
Except for one thing—I didn’t tell anybody about it—but late one night, while I was lying quiet and happy next to Jeremy, waiting to fall asleep, I thought I heard a voice.
You did good, Kyle.
Maybe I imagined it, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t.
APPENDIX
A Note on Time
There are 36 hours in a Hella-day, 36 days in a Hella-month, and 18 months (plus 3 days) in a Hella-year. So each Hella-year has 651 days.
651 days, at 36 hours each, comes to 23,436 hours per Hella-year.
An Earth-year, of course, has 24 hours in a day, and 365.25 days in a year. That comes to 8,766 hours per Earth-year.
As hours, at least, are the same on Hella and Earth, we can get the Hella-to-Earth-Year conversion with 23,436/8,766 = ~2.6735. Each Hella-year is approximately 2⅔ Earth-years.
See the chart for some example conversions.
HELLA-YEARS
CONVERTED TO EARTH-YEARS
NOTES
1
2.67
2
5.35
3
8.02
4
10.69
5
13.37
~Kyle’s age (almost)
6
16.04
~Marley’s age
10
26.74
15
40.10
20
53.47
30
80.21
40
106.94
~Hella colony’s age
50
133.68
70
187.15
100
267.35
About the Author
David Gerrold has been writing professionally for half a century. He created the tribbles for "Star Trek" and the Sleestaks for "Land Of The Lost." His most famous novel is "The Man Who Folded Himself." His semi-autobiographical tale of his son's adoption, "The Martian Child" won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards, and was the basis for the 2007 movie starring John Cusack and Amanda Peet.
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