Callisto Deception

by John Read

  “There were more?

  “No, Marie, there were only ever three ships.”

  “What are you talking about?” Marie said. Her hands began to tremble, and hot coffee splashed onto the floor. “I had friends on all four ships.” Marie thought of Lise on the Klondike and emotions began to flow. She felt an intense fear, and a painful cringing within, as if a doctor was about to share some terrible news.

  H3 stood up, pointing his pipe at Marie. “You may not believe me when I say this, but,” he paused, “the Klondike never existed.”

  21

  Somehow Marie knew H3 was telling the truth. She realized they’d been deceived. Hoshi, that bitch, we’ve all been lied to! Marie thought. But how far does this deception go?

  “I … I have to go,” she said, getting up and stumbling toward the door. She felt drunk, wanting to heave. Marie put a hand on the doorpost, steadied herself, and then staggered outside and away from the cabin.

  “Maybe you’re right,” H3 yelled. “Maybe I can help. You know where to find me.” Marie glanced back in time to catch a cunning smile creep across the trillionaire’s manipulative face.

  Marie moved toward the water in a daze, as her subconscious mind processed the information, leaving her conscious mind in a funk. She trudged through the tall grass along the shore, crushing blades under her feet and leaving a trail behind her.

  After several hundred paces she stopped, her subconscious having completed its silent analysis, and a conclusion reaching her conscious mind.

  It all makes sense now.

  Either the Doomsdayers failed to construct four ships or they knew they didn’t have enough resources to support 10,000 people. In either case, they’d used her. The Doomsdayers knew the destruction of the Klondike would inspire a baby boom, creating a new generation when they arrived on Callisto.

  Marie thought back to H3. The man seemed amiable enough, definitely well-mannered, obviously a gentleman of the old money sort. The man had ideological differences from the other Doomsdayers and his detour to Mars was understandable.

  Callisto needs someone like H3, Marie reasoned.

  Then she thought of James and felt sick all over again. She had to know if the man who had become her best friend was a fraud.

  She jumped down onto the rocky shore, where the low tide left a gravel path, and ran until her legs ached. The further she ran, the surer she was that James knew the truth. Anger stirred her gut and she gritted her teeth, clenched her fists as she ran. She reached the place where the trail resumed and climbed onto the bank.

  She ran back to her house, climbing the steps and throwing open the door.

  “James!” she yelled, as the door slammed behind her, “James!”

  James got up from a chair in the living room. He turned the corner, setting a book down on a shelf. Marie motioned for him follow, and she reopened the door and stepped back out onto the porch. James stepped behind her.

  Marie turned, facing her foe, sweat dripping from her brow. “Lise, from the Klondike.”

  “What about her?” James said.

  “You need to tell me, in one word, no explanations. One fu ... damn word. Yes or no.”

  “Calm down, what’s the matter?”

  “One word. Was Lise a real person? Yes or no.”

  “Marie, who did you talk to? Tell me.” James took a step back, out of range of Marie’s clenched fists, as if he knew…

  “Get off my deck, you son of a bitch,” she yelled through tears.

  “Marie!” James said, stumbling back.

  “Get the hell off my deck.” Marie grabbed his arm and dragged him to the stairs. She pushed him, forcing him down them.

  “I can explain,” James said.

  “No, you can’t! Good bye, James.”

  Marie went inside and slammed the door. She leaned against it, panting from exertion and pain. The pain went deep, a tightness in her chest and gut. She knew exactly what caused it. I’ve been betrayal by my closest friend. She straightened and tapped her watch. “Charles.”

  “Charles here, what’s up?” said the voice from her wrist.

  “We need to talk.”

  “James knew all along, didn’t he?” Charles said, his face red with anger.

  Marie nodded. They sat at Marie’s kitchen table. Branson was on the floor, assembling another model airplane from the printer. Lise waddled by, holding a fiber-plastic serving spoon and banging on the cabinets as she passed.

  Charles leaned forward. “Tell me about H3.” The professor’s anger seemed to subside, replaced by a look of scholarly curiosity.

  “He said he came from Mars, having arrived right before the Alliance overran the place, just like Hoshi said.”

  “Okay, so now what?” Charles said.

  “I think we need to go public,” Marie said.

  “No. For both our sakes, we can’t tell anyone.”

  “Why?” Marie said. “People should know the truth. We can’t live a world of lies, I won’t do it, I just won’t!”

  “Marie, don’t you see? They faked the Klondike for us! So you and I could do our jobs. We can’t tell people about the Klondike; we’ll incriminate the Doomsdayers, and by proxy, we’ll incriminate ourselves. H3 is the only person who can take this public, and I don’t think he will.”

  Marie looked down at the table, reached for a napkin, squeezed it into a ball, and threw it across the room. She knew he was right. They’d be putting their lives in danger, and Branson and Lise’s as well.

  “I want to meet him,” Charles said. “I want to meet H3. Callisto needs a leader like him. If the Klondike was a lie, who knows what else is? Elections are in a month and I say we convince H3 to run.”

  “How?” Marie said. “The man is a hermit!”

  “No, he’s not. He’s everything Hoshi’s not. Hear me out. Klondike aside, Hoshi is too conservative. We should be sending probes or even people back to Earth. What has Hoshi done to facilitate that? Nothing. We need someone who’s willing to think outside the Ring. We have more than enough resources to mount a mission back to Earth. And, now you’re telling me H3 has a spaceship!”

  Marie considered this for a moment. H3 has a spaceship. This could be it, the ticket to finding out if there are still survivors on Earth. John? Don’t get your hopes up, she told herself.

  “Okay,” Marie said. “We’ll go tomorrow.”

  “Perfect. Fifteen miles you say?”

  Marie nodded.

  “We’ll take my boat.”

  Charles already had the boat ready to go before the sun rematerialized. When Marie appeared on the dock, he stood with one hand on a nozzle, topping off the hydrogen tanks.

  “Thanks for sending Diana to babysit the children,” Marie said. “They seem pretty upset that James isn’t around.”

  “What did you tell Branson?” Charles asked.

  “That sometimes adults fight, too.”

  Charles nodded, unscrewing the nozzle from the electrolyzer and retracting the hose into the fuel depot. An inboard engine purred to life as Charles hit the ignition. Marie settled into a white poly-plastic chair as they sped to the center of the waterway. The open-topped pleasure boat cruised comfortably at twenty-five knots as Charles adjusted the trim to drop the bow for the trip upriver.

  “There it is,” Marie said, pointed toward the dome’s wall. Charles turned the wheel and cut the throttle. The boat’s nose sank into the tide, forcing an oblong wave away from the bow. The wave traveled toward the shore unperturbed until it broke into a small white cap and splashed up onto rocks.

  Charles anchored the boat fifteen feet off shore. He and Marie popped off their shoes, rolled up their pant legs, and hopped into knee deep water, sloshing their way to the shore on foot.

  The hermit sat in front of his cabin smoking a stubby mahogany pipe. A subtle breeze carried the aroma down the hill, reaching Marie and Charles they trudged upward. The Asimo robot was awake now; it trimmed a waist-high hedge that was beginning to infringe on
the path.

  “You didn’t tell me he had a drone!” Charles whispered, when they were a few dozen meters from the cabin.

  “Why should that have mattered?” Marie said.

  “It doesn’t matter. I just never thought I’d see one again,” Charles said.

  H3 stood up to meet them, welcoming them with a slight bow. He wore a plaid button-up shirt and blue jeans, as if he was the one actually working the land.

  “I knew you’d be back, Mrs. Orville.” H3’s tone was both welcoming and mildly condescending. “I see you’ve brought a friend. Who might I have the pleasure of meeting?”

  “Charles … Thomson,” The old professor was winded from the climb, and paused to catch his breath. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Have a seat.” There were three chairs outside. H3 gave a flick of his head to the ASIMO unit, which upon contemplating the gesture, jogged inside, returning seconds later with a tray containing two chilled glasses of lemonade.

  “So, Charles, tell me about yourself,” H3 said, tapping his pipe on an ashtray sitting on an upturned log. He struck a match on a nearby rock, and relit his pipe with several quick breaths.

  “Well, ah, I work with Marie, at the Center for Genetic Diversity,” Charles said.

  “That’s it?” H3 said, while taking a puff of his pipe. “You’re the first people I’ve talked to in months.” The trillionaire seemed genuinely interested, and Marie wondered if he was more extraverted than he’d led on during their first encounter, or if he was looking for information.

  “I was living in Australia when they picked me up. Came here on a ship called the Melbourne. I have a girlfriend named Diana and I like boats, even designed my own. I like to fish, a sport banned in most places on Earth, animal cruelty they said, but you know, I think the fish enjoy a good romp on the hook sometimes.”

  H3 looked at Marie, while pointing his pipe at Charles. “I like him.”

  “How did you know I’d be back?” Marie asked.

  “Because I knew you couldn’t share my secret about the Klondike. And because you’re a curious person and I have answers.”

  “Very astute,” Marie said. “You’re the one person on this moon who didn’t come on the convoy.”

  “How did you know about the Klondike?” Charles asked.

  “Because, as Mrs. Orville here should have told you, I am, or rather was, a Doomsdayer. I helped fund their little ‘mining’ endeavors that made this place a reality. But, when Doomsday finally arrived, I had my own business to attend to, on Mars.”

  “You always were one for the grand ventures,” Charles admitted. “I followed your development of the nuclear-powered ion drive. You changed the way people thought about space travel. You singlehandedly changed the way humans travel around the solar system!”

  “Well, aren’t you a little fan boy?” Marie said to Charles.

  “It’s true I changed travel for rich people anyway,” H3 said. “We never could get the cost of constant acceleration drives down for everyone else; it was that blasted law that forced us to build our nuclear reactors in space.”

  “Politics,” Charles said.

  H3 winked at him as he dumped some ash in a flowerpot. Marie looked at the ashtray and then back at H3.

  “It helps them grow,” H3 said.

  “Henry,” Marie said, “what are we supposed to do? I feel like I’m living a lie.”

  “What she means to say,” Charles clarified, “is that we want Hoshi to pay for the deception, and we need your help.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Elections are coming up,” Charles began, “and we think you should run.”

  H3 just stared, his expression unreadable, like that of a poker player bluffing about his winning hand.

  “There was a pamphlet on your table when I was last here,” Marie said. “Marketing material, from one of Callisto’s politicians. Which means you’ve been to a town and you must already be familiar with some of our issues.

  “I’m very aware, actually,” H3 said. “But why don’t you fill me in anyway.”

  Charles cleared his throat. “The colony needs a highway system; it’s expanding faster than our infrastructure. We’ve got time credit inflation, disincentivizing people from saving money. There are animals everywhere, and there’s a vocal minority lobbying for a zoo.”

  “Those are trivialities, Charles, tell me about a real issue. A juicy one, one that we can win on.”

  “A reconnaissance mission to Earth,” Marie said. “I want to know everything about the Doomsday mission, no more secrets.”

  “Defense of the colony,” Charles said. “It’s worked for a generation of politicians. That and lower taxes.”

  “Now that’s more like it,” H3 said, setting his pipe down on the stump. “I think you’ve proposed a viable platform: economic progress, and defense. I’ll tell you what. I’ll run on one condition.”

  “What’s that?” Marie asked.

  “That you help me, Marie, help me every step of the way,” H3 said. “I’d like you to be my personal assistant. Charles, any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.”

  Marie glanced at Charles. He looked almost giddy to be asked to help one of his heroes.

  The temperature outside dropped and it began to rain.

  “Come inside, please; I’ll make some tea,” H3 said. They went inside and took a seat. Charles reached over and turned up a heating element.

  “Does Hoshi know you’re here?” Marie asked.

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” H3 said, coming back from the kitchen. “My ship wouldn’t have shown up on radar … or LIDAR for that matter, and besides, this outpost isn’t very technical.”

  “What about James?” Marie asked. “He probably suspected something when I told him I knew about the Klondike.”

  “Ah yes, Harrison’s boy. I know his father.”

  “You mean you knew his father. He didn’t come with the convoy,” Charles said.

  “Oh, yes of course,” H3 said, without a hint of grief. “It doesn’t bother me if Hoshi knows I’m here. She’s going to find out eventually. In the meantime, tell me how things work around here.”

  “Callisto is ruled by a represented government,” Marie began. “There are twenty-five electorates, basically one for each district or town. Each district elects one representative. Newport, the capital, being the largest town, elects five.”

  H3 nodded. “Yes, yes a very good choice in governmental structure.”

  “Every two years, citizens vote for their local representatives. A week later, the representatives elect an executive committee, which includes the election of a consul.”

  “Apparently, the citizens found the word ‘president’ too dictatorial,” Charles added.

  “Perfect, perfect. Help me get elected as a representative, and I’ll handle the rest,” H3 said. “Which district am I a part of?”

  “You’re in ours. Clydesdale is the closest town,” Marie said.

  “A man named James Bekker is our current representative,” Charles said. “So far, no one is planning to run against him. The process is simple; there’s a town hall followed immediately after by the elections. I say you show up, and steal the show.”

  The rain slowed to a trickle and the holographic sun began to peek through the clouds.

  H3 nodded towards the door. “I’ll meet you in Clydesdale, Marie.”

  “Do you need us to pick you up?” she asked.

  “No that’s alright, I’ll meet you there,” H3 replied, and pointed to the robot charging in the corner.

  “Charles, why don’t you come back this afternoon? You and Asimo can help me build a boat.”

  22

  Clydesdale Elementary School’s multipurpose room had never been so packed. The chamber, where the town hall was held, had been wreathed in carvings of historical relics from Earth. An Eiffel Tower climbed one wall while a Japanese pyramid-city lined the other. The two structures met overhead like swords lock
ed in battle.

  Multicolored chairs were arranged in two sections, as in a wedding chapel, each section eight rows across. Marie, Charles, and H3 sat at the back. H3 wore a baseball cap and a flannel shirt. He’d shaved his beard, but left a few days’ scruff, and looked more like a farmer than a trillionaire. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his glasses, a concession to style he wouldn’t part with, even while trying to blend in.

  James stepped up to a wooden podium, and spoke into a small microphone rising from its center. “Welcome everyone, welcome,” he said. The murmuring room faded into silence. One person coughed, a sound which echoed off of the high ceilings.

  “It’s been an honor serving as your representative these last two years. Citizens of Clydesdale, you have created a town we can be truly proud of, a town where we’ve found joy and tranquility, despite our turbulent past. Please, give yourselves a round of applause.” The residents loved their town, and after the applause subsided, he continued, “I know you’d like to skip right to the election, but per our new constitution, I’d like to open the floor to final nominations.”

  People looked around, waiting for someone to raise their hand. James had been a respectable representative. Clydesdale was well designed and well managed. They’d taken care to design each structure tastefully and people would often visit from Newport to taste Clydesdale’s apple ciders, and ride a horse and buggy around the trails through the woods.

  James leaned toward the microphone. “Alright folks, if no one—” he was cut off.

  “I nominate Henry Allen!” Charles yelled from the back of the room.

  At first, the people thought the name was a coincidence and not everyone turned to look. Henry Allen was well known on Earth, and was often likened to Howard Hughes, or Elon Musk. There was no way, Henry Allen the Third lived in Clydesdale.

  “Seconded!” Marie yelled.

  “Well,” James said, taking a step back, but leaning forward to speak one last sentence into the microphone. “Would Henry Allen like to join me at the podium?”

  H3 stood, pacing confidently to the front of the room, and then jogged up the two steps and joined James on the platform. The two men shook hands, and H3 beamed as if there was no place in the solar system he’d rather be. H3 took off his ball cap, and ran a hand through his brown hair that retained a meticulous style despite its recent imprisonment under the hat. James recognized him, and frowned.