by Sarah Zettel
But Teal should know what was happening. “This killed Mom.” She held Eden out.
Teal leaned forward and wrinkled her nose at it. “Doesn’t look old enough.”
“No! This was inside her. This is what they cut out of her!” Teal had to understand. Teal had come back. Teal knew how important this was. Teal was the only other one who knew. “This is what they were going to put inside us!”
Teal cocked her head and eyed Chena skeptically. “So, you’re going to toss the kid over the cliff because the hothousers’ brains are all vacuum-welded?”
Anger, hot as blood, thundered through Chena’s veins. “You don’t understand. You never understand!”
Teal threw open her arms. “Explain it to me, then, Chena. You always have forty thousand explanations in storage. Let’s have the one for murdering a little boy.”
“It’s not a little boy!” she screamed. “Stop saying it’s a little boy!”
“Look at him, Chena!” snapped Teal. “If that’s not a little boy, what is it?”
Chena looked at the figure lying limp in her arms. It still looked so much like Teal—not this new, strange Teal in front of her, but Teal when she was little. Teal when she had listened, when she had believed.
“It’s a cure for the Diversity Crisis. It’s a murder weapon. It’s our future.” Chena’s eyes burned as she looked at it. It shifted again. It was going to wake up soon and open Teal’s eyes. She wouldn’t be able to jump if she had to look into Teal’s eyes. “It can’t get sick, no matter what it’s exposed to. They’re going to use it to kill off the Authority and all the Called. They’re going to be the only people left alive.” She lifted her gaze to Teal, tall and mature, all ready for the hothousers to use. “They’re going to use us to make more of them, Teal, so they can kill more people!”
“So, you’re going to throw him off a cliff?”
Tears came at last, streams of heat trickling down her cheeks. “They’re never going to leave us alone, Teal. They’re going to keep coming and coming and coming. They’re going to use us to kill people, Teal. I don’t want to kill people.” Teal’s face shifted as she finally understood it was not just Eden who had to die.
“No?” Teal’s eyebrows rose and she sauntered a couple of steps forward. “You just want to kill him and you.” Teal stepped up next to Chena and looked down over the cliff, measuring the length of the drop with her gaze.
“It’ll be over,” whispered Chena.
“For you.” Teal turned to face her. “What about me?” She poked her own chest with one finger. “If you’re gone and I’m all that’s left. What happens to me?”
Chena hesitated. Teal. Teal come back. What would they do to Teal without her there? Teal never knew how to take care of herself. “You could come with us,” she whispered. “We’d win. They’d never be able to kill anybody without us.”
“But I don’t want to die, Chena,” said Teal softly. She took another step forward. “I don’t want to give them what they want.”
“No, they want us to live.”
“Do they?” She reached out and touched Chena’s arm, and even through her tears Chena could see Teal’s eyes, Mom’s eyes. “They had to kill Mom to stop her, Chena. Do you really think they want to keep us alive?” Chena’s arms began to tremble and Teal gripped her wrist. “You do this thing and you’ll be giving them what they want.”
Exhaustion washed over Chena. So many bad decisions, so much gone wrong, she couldn’t stand it anymore. “I want it over, Teal,” she said. “There’s no life for us. Even if he was a little boy, there’d be no life for him. They’d just keep poking and prodding him, trying to figure him out. They’d still need to use us all as breeding cows because they’re desperate, Teal. They’re desperate.”
“So, screw ’em to the deck plates,” Teal spat. “If you’re dead, they’ll just fish out your body and take it apart. If you’re alive, you can fight back.”
“I’m tired, Teal.”
Teal laid her other hand on Chena’s arm. “So am I, but we’re not alone. I’ve brought help.”
“Help?” said Chena. How could there be help? There had never been anyone to help them. Not really.
But Teal nodded, and Eden groaned. It hurt. She’d hurt it.
“Let me show you,” said Teal. “And if you don’t like what you see, you can always slit your wrists or something.”
“I…” Chena hesitated, tears and exhaustion fogging her mind. This was wrong. Everything was all wrong. “I killed people already, Teal.”
“So, don’t kill anymore.” Teal held out her arms. “Let me take Eden, and you both come with me.”
Chena looked down at the cold blue water. She should jump. She should do it now. That was the sure way. It would all be over as soon as she hit the water. No more decisions, no more crying, no more blood and loss.
“I didn’t come back to argue with you, Chena,” said Teal. “And my arms are getting tired.”
Over. All over. For her. But for Teal? For the Called and the villagers? The hothousers would fish up her body. They’d take her to pieces and use her for spare parts, and there wouldn’t be a damn thing she could do about it.
And Teal was still standing in front of her, arms out, toe tapping impatiently. Teal, of all of them, had come back.
Chena poured Eden into Teal’s arms. Eden blinked and stirred again as Teal cradled him to her chest. She turned away and began walking down the cliff, toward the beach and Stem. Slowly, one shaking step at a time, Chena began to follow her.
“I have a message for you, Father Mihran.” Tam’s words dropped like lead into the center of the storm.
As one, the committee froze in the middle of their furious debate and turned to stare, mouths agape, hands still in the air.
His family. He had come back to his family, as was right. He stepped into the committee grove to stand at the foot of the table.
The entire family dome was in an uproar. As he’d walked across the family wing, he’d heard a thousand variations on the same theme. The containment measures around Stem had failed spectacularly, and everyone seemed torn between trying to measure the damage they had done to the local ecosystem, telling each other they had known it would never work, and trying frantically to sort through a billion pieces of confused and conflicting data to find out how the fences had gone down, and if anyone had slipped out of the village while they had.
He passed through it all, focused only on telling his family the truth of what had happened, and what was going to happen. He would help his family.
“Tam.” Father Mihran got to his feet and circled the table. “We are glad to have you back. You need—”
“I need to tell you what happened.” Tam grasped the father’s hand. He was shaking again. He wished he could stop that. “Please, Father.”
“Father—” began Senior Dreas.
Father Mihran waved him silent. “What is your message, Tam?”
Tam released Father Mihran’s hand and sank to his knees so he could touch the command board set into the committee table. As he worked the keys, he wondered again where Aleph was. She had not spoken to him since he entered the complex and although he had been able to stop himself from calling for her, he had not been able to stop himself from wondering where her attention was. What had she told the other cities about him? Did she approve of what was happening here? Was he doing the right thing? The doubts and the guilt would not leave him alone.
I am telling my family the truth, Tam reminded himself. Aleph must approve. Aleph is the one who has always helped me.
Tam touched the monitor glass at his right to set it to reception mode.
The glass filled with colors, which split into two halves. One half coalesced to show Beleraja Poulos sitting in a tiny office aboard Athena Station. The other showed the car of the space cable, with Chena and Teal Trust flanking the stooped figure of Nan Elle.
“Commander Poulos,” Father Mihran said, not bothering to salute. “We have bee
n waiting to hear from you.” He squared his shoulders. “We understand your people are en route.” He peered at the tableau on the left side of the glass. Tam wondered if the father understood everything he saw. Aleph most certainly did, but Aleph was still keeping her silence.
Beleraja shook her head. “My people are here, and we have something of yours.” She nodded toward the other half of the screen. Nan Elle reached behind herself and brought out a slim, dirty boy of about five years old. “This is your Eden.”
Outraged voices rang out behind him. “Impossible!”
“How could they!”
“It’s a fake! A mock-up!”
“No,” said Tam quietly to Father Mihran. “That is the Eden Project.” Now they knew everything. Almost everything. They did not yet know how the project had been found. Did not yet know of Dionte’s plans, and how badly they had failed. Tears prickled Tam’s eyes for his lost sister.
Beside him, Father Mihran’s jaw twitched, as if he were fighting to keep back the words he knew he must speak. “What do you want?”
Nan Elle patted Eden’s hand and walked him toward the edge of the screen, moving him out of camera range.
Only when the child was out of sight did Beleraja speak again. “I want to make an end to the Diversity Crisis, Father Mihran,” she said matter-of-factly. “A real, viable end. I want you to let the Called come to Pandora.”
“Never,” snapped the father instantly.
Beleraja betrayed no surprise at that curt answer. Why should she? She was an experienced trader as well as a commander. She knew very well how this game was played.
But did she know she was treading on holy ground here? Tam felt his stomach knot. Did she know how long and how hard their people had worked to keep Pandora inviolate? Even now, all the endless repetitions of protection rang around his tired head and he felt his strength to resist them crumbling.
Where are you, Aleph? He rubbed his temple. I need your help. You helped me be strong before. I need you now.
Beleraja leaned in closer to the screen. In the cable car, Teal Trust clenched her fists and her jaw. What are you holding in? he wondered. What voices are calling to you?
“What do you think is going to happen when we tell the Authority that the cure does not exist?” Beleraja asked Father Mihran. “That you have nothing except one five-year-old boy to show for all your promised work?”
“They will see that the boy will answer.” Pride drew Father Mihran’s shoulders back even farther. It was not possible that his family should fail, that the results of their slow, patient, meticulous work should be anything but perfect.
“No,” said Beleraja. “The boy will not be exploited. Neither will his sisters. That is not an option.”
“There is no other option,” said Father Mihran slowly, as if explaining the obvious. “There is no other cure.”
“Yes, there is. The Called can come here.” Beleraja pointed toward the floor.
“We will not let that happen. Pandora must be protected.”
“Pandora must be protected!” shouted Senior Jahn, and a dozen other voices echoed her words, including his own, Tam realized, as he fell back into his sitting position. Aleph, help me. I’m losing my grip.…
Now it was Beleraja’s turn to make a show of patience. She sighed sadly and shook her head. “You cannot protect Pandora,” she said, sounding more like a mother now than a commander. “We’ve just proven that. We are here and we have already claimed what we wanted.” The steel returned to her voice and her face. “You can’t stand against even one family. How will you manage if the whole Authority turns against you?”
“They are still riding the cable, Father,” said Senior Jahn. “We can call it back, have a troop of constables waiting for her.”
“Do it,” said Father Mihran. “We are reclaiming Eden, Commander. If any of your people try to interfere again, they will die for their trespasses.”
“No,” said Aleph.
“Aleph?” Father Mihran turned toward the city’s voice, complete disbelief showing on his face.
Aleph manifested an image on the nearest wall, a mature woman, straight-backed and square-faced, in a black jacket and white trousers. She looked a bit like Beleraja, Tam thought.
“She is speaking the truth,” said Aleph calmly. “We cannot protect Pandora by preventing the Called from coming here. We must allow this. Only when the fear is gone will we have peace.”
“Aleph, this is not—” began Father Mihran.
But Aleph did not seem to hear him. “I speak with the other cities as I speak with you. We are working out formulas for population distribution that will allow maximum genetic exchange and minimum territorial overpopulation.” Aleph bowed her head, as if under the weight of the necessities facing her. “Pandora will change, but Pandora will live and be protected. There will be no reason to attack us. The Called will eventually be resettled.”
“No,” said Father Mihran, but his voice wavered. “Aleph, this cannot be the answer.”
“It is all the answer we have,” she said. “Please, do not turn me away. Let me help my family as I was meant to.”
Father Mihran watched the image of his city for a moment, but then he slashed his hand through the air. “I’m sorry, Aleph. We cannot permit this.” All the seniors murmured their agreement with Father Mihran’s dismissal. “Aleph, we respect you, but this is not a matter for you and the cities.…”
They hesitated and Tam felt himself smile in sad sympathy. He knew what was happening. He could practically hear. It is wrong to argue with your city, said all their Consciences. Your city is taking care of you. That is what your cities are for. You must work with your city. To do otherwise is wrong. Why are you doing this?
In the midst of their guilty silence, Aleph spoke again. “We are your cities. It is our job to protect you, as it is your job to protect Pandora. I cannot let you injure yourself in your zeal.” The image looked past the father to Beleraja. “Bring us your plans, Commander. We must begin work at once.”
Beleraja inclined her head once and then moved her hand to the command board. The connection cut and the images faded to black, fading the Trusts, around whom so many plans had been woven, to insubstantial ghosts, setting them free like wild birds that could not be controlled or predicted in duress, even after a thousand years of observation and understanding.
Leaving Tam alone with what remained of his family, of himself, and of his city. Alone, with nothing but a whole new world of their making. A world they would have to walk in, to understand with their own eyes and hands so they would know how to settle the human race here. Where they would finally have to understand the balance between what they made and what they found.
In a way, Dionte had been right. It was going to take everybody to secure the future. She just didn’t see far enough. It was going to take all of humanity, every last one of them bound tightly together by need, desire, fear, joy, friendship, hatred, love, struggle, and hope. Oh, most especially hope.
They would have to open the villages. They would have to leave the complexes and walk out in the wild. Step into the marsh and watch the birds in their thousands take flight all around them.
The image filled him, heart, mind, and soul, and for the first time in his life, Tam saw the birds fly and felt no guilt, none at all.
EPILOGUE
Open Cages
Teal crossed the car and sat down beside Chena on the curving padded bench that ran along the inner wall. Chena just pulled the blanket tighter around her. She did not want Teal here. She did not want anybody.
“Going home at last,” said Teal cheerfully.
Chena bit her lip, remembered herself, and pushed her lip out again. “Teal…”
“Yes?”
Chena ground her teeth. How could she speak? Where could she possibly begin? She’d been ready to die, to kill, to fall. That was what she wanted. She remembered wanting it very clearly. Except some small part of her had not wanted it at all.
> Finally some words came out. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” said Teal, waving her hand in breezy dismissal of her sister’s seriousness.
The gesture made Chena wince. “I don’t know what happened to me.”
“I do.”
“Oh?” For the first time since the edge of the cliff, Chena felt some warmth inside her, and a bit of annoyance. “You going to tell me?”
Teal nodded. “You thought you had the answers, as usual, and you were wrong.”
“Is that what it was?” Chena sat up a little straighter, feeling something in her mind that had been retreating turn around and move a little bit closer. “I thought I was in shock because I had just murdered three people.”
Teal shrugged. “That too.”
They sat silently together for a moment. Teal seemed to be watching Farin where he sat at the transmitter screen, flicking through assorted databases, but Chena couldn’t be certain what her sister was actually seeing.
Chena bit her lip, let it go, and bit it again. “Where’s Eden?” she asked.
“He’s in with Nan Elle,” said Teal, not looking at her. “I think she’s going to give him a bath.”
“Did you find Dad?”
“Yes.” Teal dropped her gaze and twisted her fingers together. “He’s dead.”
Again, silence closed over her. Chena let it. It was so strange. Even when they were sitting, Teal was taller than she was. Chena had imagined so many things about meeting her sister again, but she had never imagined she would feel so much younger than this strange, tall Teal. “So, it’s just us.”
“And our brother,” Teal reminded her gently.
Chena turned her head, memory of wanting to kill the boy burning a river of shame through her. “You really think he’s our brother?”
Teal just spread her hands. “What else could he be? He’s Mom’s, just like we are.”
Now Chena shrugged. “I thought he was just a thing. One more thing the hothousers made.”
Teal smiled, and the smile was deeply familiar and entirely Teal’s. “Like I said, thought you had all the answers.”