by Nancy Kress
Although—why Rangers, then, instead of the usual Marine honor guard for diplomats? Rangers were a direct-action special operations raid force. And why a crack marksman taking up one valuable berth that could have been used for another scientist or Washington bigwig?
Leo didn’t think he was going to get answers to any of that, but he couldn’t help mulling over the questions. What the hell sort of trouble was expected on Kindred?
* * *
“We do not, of course, anticipate any trouble,” Maria Gonzalez said. She stood at the front of the common room, the most spacious area on the Friendship, addressing the twelve people in easy chairs or seated around the small tables. Two Navy personnel, Executive Officer Anna Fielding and crewman Robert Ritter, were on the bridge, although Marianne couldn’t imagine what they were doing there, since the ship pretty much flew itself and no one, including Engineer Volker, understood how. Maybe the Navy personnel were talking to Earth while they still could. The Army people were holding their own briefing.
Ambassador Gonzalez was forty-nine, a tall and elegant woman with black hair worn in a chignon. As the first-ever ambassadorial appointee to another planet, she carried enormous responsibility to make the mission go well, which she bore without apparent anxiety or doubt. The woman radiated a confidence that Marianne envied.
“If I repeat information you already know, please forgive me,” Gonzalez said. Her smile was charming, if a little practiced. “We don’t know much about how this ship functions, but our Kindred cousins”—a carefully chosen term, Marianne guessed, to remind everyone that the Kindred were human—“have shared their own experience with their ship. The star drive bequeathed to them—and now to us!—is best pictured with space as a piece of cloth. A handkerchief, perhaps. We are at one corner. The drive ‘folds up’ space until we touch the opposite corner, unfolds, and there we are. The Kindred said that about a week passed aboard ship while this metaphorical folding occurred, although when they sent their first ship—because as you all know, they had built two—and went to their ill-fated colony planet, the folding took only a few hours. So it does seem dependent on distance.”
Marianne was not used to people who spoke in such long, grammatically correct sentences with so many dependent clauses, varied with punchier short sentences. Admirable, if slightly theatrical. Gonzalez was a pro.
“We thus expect to be in space for two weeks, although supplies have been brought for three months. We cannot, of course, eat the food on Kindred; our microbes are not adapted for it. The plan is two weeks of travel, a month on Kindred, two weeks back. During the journey out, you will have a last chance to learn or improve your knowledge of the language. The screens in your quarters, and we do apologize for the small size of the accommodations, can access voice lessons in Kindese, accompanied by English transliterations as best as we can produce. Just as a reminder: A caret in the middle of a word indicates a rising inflection, and an upside-down exclamation point a tongue click, like this.”
The ambassador clicked. Marianne, who had no aptitude for languages, had pretty much failed at learning Kindese. Her tongue click sounded like she needed the Heimlich maneuver.
“On Kindred,” the ambassador continued, “the scientists will have opportunities to interact with their counterparts, and the diplomatic corps will establish what I’m sure will be a long, mutually beneficial interstellar relationship with the government on Kindred. Which, of course, is made much simpler by the fact that there is only one!”
Obliging laughter. Gonzalez smiled engagingly. She was known for her abrupt switches from formal speech to the unexpected joke, the slang phrase in the right place. The media loved her.
Gonzalez waved her hand and said, “Piece of cake.”
* * *
“We don’t know what to expect on Kindred,” Colonel Matthews said. “The plan is two weeks of transport, a month of occupation, two weeks’ transport back. The natives could be friendly, but they don’t know we’re coming, and there is always the possibility they won’t like it. At destination, the shuttle will convey rotating parties of five to the surface; one will remain on watch aboard unless otherwise informed. At the end of the meeting, Lieutenant Lamont will go over the various possible incident scenarios we’ve anticipated, with our responses. Contingencies include crowd riots, kidnapping, extraction scenarios, terrorist operations, outright military attack, infiltration of the ship or our Ranger base, and/or emergency evacuation of all personnel.
“Basically, all of us need to be ready for anything at all times.”
* * *
Captain Alan Lewis now spoke. Marianne recognized him, of course—he was the famous astronaut who had saved the lives of two Chinese and one French astronauts at the ISS. Appointing him commander of the Friendship was a PR stroke of genius. Everyone but the Russians liked him; the Russians didn’t like anybody. But the Russian spaceship, like the original American one, had been the target of domestic terrorism by the widespread, dangerous extremists who wanted no contact with Kindred because they held the Kindred responsible for the spore cloud. Which made no sense, but then, when did extremism ever make sense? Marianne was just glad that the Russian ship no longer existed. She had already tangled with it once.
Lewis had the same easy charm as Gonzalez—was that desirable in a ship’s captain? Marianne didn’t know. Certainly he looked the part, a handsome African-American in dress whites.
“I won’t go over everything in your briefings,” Lewis said. “You already know about shuttle deployment, planet conditions, and helmet requirements.”
She knew. Kindred orbited an orange dwarf. Slightly larger than Earth but less dense, the planet’s gravity was .92 gee and its oxygen content equaled Terra’s at twelve thousand feet. They could have breathed the air, which was similar to Earth’s, but would not because of microbes. Nobody on the mission had the same immunity to Kindred pathogens that the Kindred had developed over millennia, and so the air helmets were necessary to cover mouths, ears, eyes. Also, no Terran’s gut microbes made eating anything grown there plausible. Ten Terrans had gone with the aliens when they left Earth, including Marianne’s son Noah, and all of them would have had their microbiome completely changed. Examining these ten bodies was the major excitement for the two physician-biologists aboard, Claire Patel and Salah Bourgiba. Marianne saw them exchange small anticipatory smiles across the room.
* * *
“Drills will be held immediately following this meeting in the use of filter masks,” Colonel Matthews said. “Remove your filter planetside and you won’t die, maybe, but you risk infection from native diseases that you could then carry back to this unit. Removing filters inappropriately is grounds for court-martial. Does everyone understand that?”
“Yes, sir!”
Leo wondered if he could sight and shoot as well through the faceplate of some fucking filter helmet. He hadn’t so much as seen the thing before, and he sure couldn’t test it regarding marksmanship while aboard the ship. Had the CO thought of that?
* * *
“The shuttle, human built, is large enough,” Captain Lewis said, “to hold everyone for transport but not as habitat, which it will become once we are on ground. Navy personnel will stay aboard the ship except for Lieutenant Yi, who will pilot the shuttle. Colonel Matthews plans to leave one of his soldiers aboard as well.”
Why? That made no sense to Salah, but then, he had never been in the military. To prevent mutiny? Looting? Hijacking? Seriously?
“Although it will be a habitat, the shuttle will also make four scheduled trips to the ship to reload supplies, exchange personnel as needed, and allow our scientists access to the greater computing power of—Ladies and gentlemen, there goes the moon.”
All heads swiveled to the wall screen. In a single eye blink, the moon loomed off to the left and then dwindled, no more than a firefly in the night. How fast was the Friendship moving? He would have to look it up.
Another miracle. Another adaptive normal. The mee
ting resumed.
* * *
“We have now passed the moon,” Colonel Matthews announced. He must, Leo realized, be receiving information from the bridge. Well, cool—that’s what the CO’s data glasses were for, but they were so sleek and normal-looking that Leo hadn’t even realized. Great tech!
The filter masks weren’t too bad, either. The thing wasn’t a helmet or a big-ass gas mask, after all. Made of some clear, flexible plastic, it fit snugly—really snugly—over his mouth and nose and sealed itself to his face. A bulge under one ear held some sort of tiny motor. The mask kept Terrans from breathing in microbes their bodies couldn’t handle, but microbes in the air still could get on their skin and in “other orifices,” so protocol would be to wear wet suits when they were out of base. At least, they looked like wet suits to Leo, covering pretty much everything. The gloves were thinskin and really flexible, but they were still gloves and he didn’t like shooting with gloves. Another problem.
“Brodie,” Colonel Matthews said, “everybody else has drilled with this equipment for weeks. Your duty roster includes sessions with Kandiss to thoroughly familiarize yourself with the equipment.”
Leo nodded. He was the FNG—Fucking New Guy—and way behind the curve. But he was a fast learner.
Matthews said, “Duty rosters, including exercise periods, are as follows—”
* * *
The meeting droned on. Marianne fought drowsiness. She knew all of this information—everybody here knew all of this information. They’d had classes on it. Now the astrophysicist and geologist were reciting the known facts about Kindred’s physical properties, along with speculations on its geologic history. When they finished—and please God, let it be soon—probably Maria Gonzalez was going to repeat what was known about Kindred social structure. What if Marianne pleaded a headache and—
The wall screen, which had shown black space studded with stars, suddenly went completely dark. The PA system said, “Captain Lewis and Ambassador Gonzalez to the bridge. Repeat, Captain Lewis and Ambassador Gonzalez to the bridge.”
David Sherman, geologist, stopped in midsentence. He and the astrophysicist looked at each other. A moment later the PA said, “Dr. McKenzie to the bridge. Repeat, Dr. McKenzie to the bridge.”
The astrophysicist disappeared through the door. Before anyone could stop her, Marianne followed him.
David Sherman struggled on a moment more: “As I was saying, the molten core of Kindred is … isn’t…” He stopped again.
Stars reappeared on the wall screen.
* * *
In the middle of helmet drill—not hard, but Leo still had no answer about its effect on sighting targets—Colonel Matthews suddenly went intent, listening to something no one else could hear. Then he said to Owen, “Lieutenant, take over,” and strode from the room.
The Rangers glanced covertly at each other.
* * *
Captain Lewis, affability gone, said tightly, “Dr. Jenner, you were not summoned. Please leave the bridge.”
“No,” the ambassador said, “let her stay. She’s the only one with any experience with Kindred; maybe she can shed some light on this.”
The door flung open and Colonel Matthews strode into the room. He addressed Lewis sharply. “Captain, I expect to be included in discussions when something of this nature occurs.”
It seemed to Marianne that Lewis wanted to say something in the same tone as Matthews—Christ, not a turf war just six hours out! But Lewis was too good for that. He caught himself and said, “You’re right, Colonel. My apologies. What has happened is that all communication with Earth has ceased. It happened at the moment the stars … blinked.”
Blinked. That must have meant the Friendship had jumped from one side of the ambassador’s piece of cloth to the other. But that wasn’t supposed to happen yet! Or, rather, it hadn’t happened that way when the Kindred ship approached Earth eleven years ago. There had been two weeks of sightings by NASA, SETI, the European and Chinese and Russian space agencies, and every amateur astronomer who knew where to point a telescope. The Friendship was supposed to have two weeks in the solar system before she jumped.
Greg McKenzie had been working at the computer. He said, “Ambassador, we’ve arrived. This is the Kindred system.”
Marianne swiveled to face the wall screen. All she saw was a fuzzy orange disk in the black sky. Around it were other, brighter stars.
Gonzalez recovered fast. “Very well,” she said. “We all knew that the ship’s drive was preset to arrive back at Kindred, but I guess we didn’t realize how quickly we would arrive. Captain Lewis, are we now traveling at normal ship speed?”
Marianne had to suppress an insane giggle. What was “normal” under these circumstances?
Evidently Captain Lewis agreed. “I have no idea, Madam Ambassador. Mr. Volker?”
The Navy engineer said, “We are traveling at the same speed as before we, ah, jumped. At this speed, assuming it remains constant, we are three weeks away from arriving at the planet.”
“Thank you,” Gonzalez said. “Captain, can we speak to the planet now?”
“I’ll try.”
* * *
Owen must have been equipped with some way to hear Colonel Matthews, or something, because he broke off in the middle of a sentence and said, “As of now, this unit is on red alert. Battle stations, now.”
Four soldiers sprang up faster. Faster than Leo, standing bewildered and alone by the table, imagined possible, Owen had opened a bulkhead locker and he, Kandiss, Flores, and Berman were grabbing arms and donning armor. Owen felt like a fool. He didn’t have a battle station, had no idea what he was supposed to be doing. A sniper was useless on a tiny ship. Owen said calmly, “Brodie, come with me. Cover me if necessary.” He handed Leo his gear.
Cover him? Against what? Were they going to be boarded, or land, or … Leo did as he was ordered, automatically checking his weapon, copying Owen’s movements, hoping for the best.
* * *
Marianne stood inconspicuously in a corner of the bridge while Ambassador Gonzalez addressed the tiny blue marble on the wall screen. “Kindred, this is the Terran ship Friendship, from the United States, built with the plans you left us when you came to Earth. We come now in peace and friendship.” She then repeated the message in English.
No answer.
Gonzalez tried again, and again. Nothing. She turned to the engineer and the physicist, both of whom had been involved in building the ship. “Are we too far out?”
Volker said, “It seems so, ma’am.”
“I want the recorded version of the message played every hour, and I want to be summoned immediately, awake or asleep, when there is a response. We don’t know where their receiving equipment is, in orbit or on the ground, or in how many places.”
No, they didn’t know that. Although, Marianne thought, it was reasonable to suppose that a civilization so much further advanced than Earth had ultra-sophisticated detection equipment for anything out of the ordinary in their star system. Still—
Judy Taunton, physicist on Earth and Marianne’s friend, had made some very disturbing speculations about Kindred.
Gonzalez said, “Open the all-ship frequency, please. I would like to tell everyone what the—”
“Oh my God!” McKenzie blurted.
Colonel Matthews said sharply, “What is it? Incoming?”
“No, no, I … my God, no, but I checked … let me run the program again!”
Gonzalez said, “What program? Inform us, Dr. McKenzie!”
The astrophysicist turned away from the computer and toward the ambassador. Marianne was shocked at how pale he looked, how shaky. If he fainted … But he didn’t. McKenzie got hold of himself, although his voice quavered.
“The astronomical program checks the stars’ locations against charts. We know what positions every celestial body should hold relative to each other, given observers’ positions. None of them right now are as projected, they—”
&n
bsp; Gonzalez said sharply, “You mean we aren’t at Kindred?”
“Oh, we’re there,” McKenzie said. “But the aliens didn’t tell us there would be a temporal dislocation. But … but from star positions, there is. Time dilation has carried us forward fourteen years from when we left Earth. And I’m assuming that returning will add another fourteen years. And they didn’t tell us.”
CHAPTER 2
It began almost immediately.
Salah Bourgiba had anticipated it, from the moment that the ambassador made her announcement. The other doctor aboard, Claire Patel, was a virologist, more of a researcher than a physician, although she was licensed to practice medicine. It was Salah who had extensive clinical experience, who did so well with medical patients needing psychological support. The background checkers knew that, of course, along with everything about everybody.
So they came to him, these young men and women who had just learned that when they returned home, everybody else would be twenty-eight years older, and they would not be. Who were expected to remain adaptable and tight-lipped and professional everywhere else on the ship. Crewman Robert Ritter, who had a wife and a three-year-old child. A month from now, little Susan would be older than her father. Dr. David Sherman, who was embarrassed to be asking help at age forty-one but who had parents who would be dead when he returned. Ambassador Gonzalez did not come to see Salah, although he knew that she was uneasy about establishing diplomatic relations now, when the spore cloud was imminent. She’d expected to arrive on Kindred fifteen years before that happened.
Branch Carter, the brilliant young lab tech and personal-hardware whiz, did come to see Salah. And, unlike many others, Branch was willing to express openly his rage.
Salah heard that rage even before Branch entered, in the passageway outside sick bay. Branch’s voice rippled with anger. “Did you know?”
“What? No!” Marianne Jenner, who must have been passing by. “I didn’t know any more than the rest of you.”
“Uh-huh. You sure your son didn’t tell you before he left with the aliens and you just didn’t bother to tell the rest of us because you were so hell-bent on getting Terrans to World?”