Rebirth

by Philip R Benge

  **********

  Paul Divine faced a new morning on the cramped starship filled to the brim with new world colonists. As he looked out from his own piece of space, inside what must once have been a broom cupboard upon this gigantic freighter, he wondered whether he and Charles would find any signs of the Aldebran spies today. Deck A where he was billeted only had one hundred colonists living on it, but even so the noise from all the colonists talking to one another, children crying and parents trying to control their increasingly bored and increasingly restless families was enough to make him want to scream out, Quiet! Never mind, Divine thought, I am not paid to complain about my working conditions, but to find a pair of Aldebran spies. Divine could see his fellow agent, Charles Bragg, he was at the far end of the deck talking to the McPherson family from Glasgow; they were one of the seven families on his list of suspects. The other two families from Oregon having now been put back on the list following a rethink by Formby to tell no one about his gut feeling concerning the two families from Pendleton.

  "I am sure looking forward to getting off this ship Mr Bragg, I know that it has only been a couple of days now since we came aboard, but the constant noise of all these people yammering away gets to you when there is no escape from it. Luckily we were all warned about this particular problem by the Church, so I have purchased a pair of ear plugs for myself and my wife and they have proved a great blessing to us when we want some quiet time." McPherson said, smiling at the agent.

  "So, what is the most important thing about the move for you, Mr McPherson?" Bragg enquired of the Scotsman. It was Mrs McPherson who answered the question.

  "It gives us the chance to have some children Mr Bragg, as you know, back on Earth it was far too expensive for the likes of us to be able to afford to have a family, and even just one child would cost a relative fortune. Out here as a new world colonist we can have as many as we can feed by our own efforts, and on our very own farm." This was very important to Mrs McPherson, for she dearly wanted a family of her own, as did many of the colonists.

  "Aye, my wife is right about that, a family is why we are here, getting away from all the bureaucratic idiots on Earth is only secondary. But what of you Mr Bragg are ye no married yourself with bairns of your own?" McPherson wondered.

  "Unfortunately my old life as a space marine broke up my marriage, and since then I haven`t been able to meet anyone that I wanted to settle down with." Charles Bragg said sadly.

  "Well there are a few single and widowed women aboard this ship, maybe one of them will be the right one for you. Then you can stay on and become a new world colonist like all the rest of the people here, once we land on Persephone that is. Then instead of roaming through space you can settle down and raise a family, although from the stories that you have told to the folk about here, you seem to have led an exciting life."

  Bragg had spent part of the previous evening telling of his exploits as a space marine, and in doing so he had made many friends.

  "Exciting yes, but the cost was getting far too high for me, I lost too many friends out there in space, and so I decided to quit that life and try another one."

  "Working for the Church, Mr Bragg?"

  "For the moment I am, it is nice to be with good people travelling to a planet that should improve all of their lives by their own efforts, and without the authorities constantly looking over their shoulders."

  Charles Bragg meant this, and he was even contemplating doing what the McPhersons had suggested, if not now then sooner rather than later.

  Paul Divine had moved up to Deck B, and walking along the row came to the living area where the Collins family were. Paul Divine knew from the records that they were farmers from the village of Washington in the county of Sussex, England.

  "Hi there, my name is Paul Divine and I thought that I would stretch my legs for a while, don`t you find that you get cramp all over if you sit for too long?"

  Mr Collins looked up at him scowling just a little.

  "Good morning Mr Divine, to what do my wife and I owe the pleasure of your company?" From the look upon his face, he clearly did not count it as one of life`s little pleasures, being forced to talk to Paul Divine.

  "I am just normally a gregarious type, I like to talk to people, to get to know them, make new friends when I can; but today I must confess I am also trying to alleviate the boredom of our flight aboard our mysteriously tiny but enormous starship. Tell me, how do you find the journey so far?"

  However, Divine did not give them time to answer his question; instead, he just ploughed straight ahead.

  "They have me locked away on deck A, in a broom cupboard that is, for both me and my friend Charles, and as he is even bigger than me it feels very claustrophobic in there. Coupled to that is the fact that we are tight up against the engine room, and so we feel the vibrations and hear the hum of the engines constantly, although I must admit that they did help me get off to sleep last night."

  "Well, the good Lord must have had his reasons for putting you both in there, have you been having troubles getting along maybe?" Collins asked, already getting bored with Paul Divine.

  "No, there are no problems between Charles and me, fact is we get along real well, I do have trouble getting off to sleep usually though, so maybe he put us there to help us get enough sleep to prepare for the hard work ahead of us, after we have landed on Persephone."

  "It could be just that Mr Divine, or it could be for the good of both you and your new neighbours, if a person stays awake to long it only serves to make him antagonistic the next day, especially on this ship where everyone is thrown close up against his neighbour." Collins said.

  "Yes, you may be right Mr Collins especially with all the snoring, likely to drive you crazy that is. So tell me, did you have a good journey to the pickup point?"

  "Yes, good enough, we left it late so as to minimise the amount of time that we would spend on the ship, but we still arrived with time to spare, for we had sent our belongings on ahead of us, so that there was only our persons to tend to. We took in some of the churches on the way and especially the Cathedrals, for it is unlikely that we shall see such grand buildings again." Collins was beginning to open up; maybe he was falling under the spell of Paul Divine`s charm.

  Divine didn`t see the Collins as a pair of Aldebran spies; Mr Collins seemed more the sort of man who found comfort in religion."

  "You came aboard at Ganymede, Mr Divine, didn`t you, tell we why there and not Earth?"

  "Well the original guys who were supposed to come on this trip to set up your interstellar communications relay had an accident, so we are their replacements, the geeks from Ganymede." Divine said once again giving the reason he and Charles Bragg had worked out beforehand.

  In fact, two of the ship`s crew had been designated to do the job that Divine and Bragg were supposed to be doing on arrival at Persephone, and it was likely that they would indeed end up doing just that.

  "So are you a farming family Mr Collins?" Paul Devine asked.

  "Yes, but our new farm on Persephone will be a lot bigger than we are used to, but I put my trust in the Lord that he will assist me, so that I will be able to cope with any new problems that it may bring us."

  "I had a look down in the hold earlier, have you been down there Mr Collins. There are twenty five prefabricated buildings down there."

  Mrs Collins answered this question, for she saw that her husband was again losing interest in talking to the nice Mr Divine, but she did not mind the chance to talk to someone new, especially someone who was as charming as Paul Divine was.

  "Yes Mr Divine, we did; but as our own farm is to be set a little way from the town, we will be living in one of the many tents that are also down in the hold, until they have built a new house for us."

  Mrs Collins was obviously the gregarious type also for she ploughed straight on with the conversation.

  "I am quite excited by the thought of actually starting our new life, once we have landed on Persephone
that is, our farm will be one thousand acres in size so as my husband said it will be quite large enough for us. It will take a lot of work to get it set up, but the Church have given us enough stores to last us for six months if need be, however we hope that the planet will supply us with our needs. We will get further supplies, should we need them, on the next trip that the Constellation makes. We also have the use of one of the ten tractors and one of the five large trucks, although as there are twenty-five farms being set up in the first phase of the colonisation, we will have to wait our turn of course, along with the rest of the farmers. I don`t even mind the discomfort of living in a tent for the first six months of our new life, it will simply add to the excitement of it all."

  They continued to talk for at least an hour until Mr Collins said that he was going to the galley to get some coffee. Not long after this, Paul Divine excused himself for he was sure that this couple were not Aldebran spies, and he was sure that Mr Collins would cause a scene if he were still there when he returned, and so he moved along the deck to where he already knew the Claytons were to be found.

  The Claytons looked to be a little out of place here on a colony ship of new worlders. Mr Clayton according to the records was thirty-five years old, he was thin and wiry and about five feet six inches tall with a ferrety kind of face fringed with a short beard and topped with short blond hair. Mrs Clayton was the same age as her husband, with a slim figure and about the same height; she was quite pretty and she had short blond hair too. Both of them looked as if they would be more at home in a big city than in the beginnings of a small new world colony town, but then new world colonies were normally a mixture of many different kinds of people, all desperately searching for something better, all leaving Earth and her problems behind for many different reasons.

  "Good morning, my name is Paul Divine and my mission is to alleviate some of the boredom of the voyage, if you don`t mind my intrusion, may I ask how the two of you are?"

  Mariah Rigor answered him.

  "No Mr Divine, we don`t mind you intruding in on us for a little while, so that you can complete your mission."

  Mariah Rigor smiled sweetly up at Paul, but there was something in her eyes that warned him to beware. It told him that he may have found his first possible candidate for the position of spies, that and something else about this seemingly sweet woman scared him, warned him not to be alone with this seemingly sweet and good looking woman, if he valued his life that is. Paul Divine pushed this feeling to one side, at least now he had a definite maybe, even if the maybe was based only on a feeling deep within his gut.

  "You`re the Geologists aren`t you, from Oregon?"

  "Yes, that`s right, although we have lived and worked in many places, but how would you know that Mr Divine." Mariah Rigor asked while smoothing out a non-existent crease in the leg of her slacks.

  "I read the piece that the Church wrote in their article about Persephone, you should read it; it gives some interesting facts about the new colony. The hopes of some of the settlers, and a small piece about you and your husband being on Mars before you made the trip back to Earth, so as to be able to journey out to the distant Persephone." His answer should have satisfied Mariah, but something about Divine did not appear to ring true to her; the kind of life that she led had soon created the main essential characteristic of the secret agent, for she would not have lasted very long otherwise, that of being able to quickly size people up.

  "You should be very busy when we arrive on Persephone, searching the wilderness of a new world for likely sites, so that the mining families can start prospecting with some likelihood of striking it lucky." Paul Devine said.

  "Yes Mr Divine, but if they do strike it lucky, then so do we." Mariah answered, now sure of her feeling about Divine.

  "A lot will depend on your luck and your abilities as geologists; that would stress some people out, having so many people depending on you." Divine said.

  "Well the survey ship has already listed some likely sites for the miners to start, our job will be to get our hands dirty, to refine the survey ships data by actually looking closely at each of their recommendations and giving the miners a better chance of finding something before they die of old age. So you see there isn`t so much depending on us."

  "Then like I said, it looks like you`re in for some hard work. Which miner gets your attention first and which last?" Paul Devine asked.

  "It will be decided by the computer, it will pick the names out of its electronic hat." Mariah said smiling at her little joke.

  Paul Divine looked at the expensive clothing worn by the woman he thought of as Mary Clayton.

  "You don`t seem the types to rough it away from the comforts of a luxury apartment, with nothing for a tent and a camp fire to keep out the cold." He asked.

  "Oh Greg and I don`t mind roughing it for the right reason, the right percentage of all the correct strikes that are made using our recommendations." Mariah smiled another of her childlike smiles and continued.

  "But we won`t be the only ones to profit from our work, the people of Persephone will also get a share of the strike, the miner himself will obviously get a large share, and the Church also gets a large share so as to repay all the money that it made available to fund this wonderful adventure."

  "But how about you, Mr Divine, what is your job, for you don`t look like the average new world colonist either?" Greg Clayton/ Johor Rigor asked, entering into the conversation now.

  "Oh I am not a new world colonist." Paul Divine said, and then gave Mariah and Johor Rigor the reason that he had been giving since he and Charles Bragg came aboard the Constellation; that they were on board the ship to set up the interstellar communications system when they all reached Persephone.

  "Ah! So you are one of the gentlemen who came aboard at Ganymede then." Mariah said, as she and her husband traded a quick glance with one another.

  Paul Divine felt that icy finger running up and down his spine again; something inside of him was warning him that his life could now be in danger. He also thought that it was very possible that Mary Clayton and her husband had identified him for what he really was, a government agent, which meant that Charles Bragg`s life was also in danger. Outwardly Paul Divine gave nothing away, he still seemed his carefree self as he went on with the conversation.

  "I have always been interested in geology; tell me, what sort of rock would you hope to find Dylithium crystals in?"

  "Why Mr Divine are you going to try and steal my royalties away from me?" Mariah said in mock shock.

  "No, you won`t find me risking my life out in the wilds of some unexplored world; I always take care to limit any risks to my life." Paul Devine replied.

  "Yes, I suspect that in your line of work you do, Mr Divine." Mariah said in her very innocent voice.

  "My line of work, how do you mean Mrs Clayton?" Paul Divine wondered anxiously.

  "Don`t you spend your life charging around space and that sort of thing, there must be times when it gets dangerous?"

  Not long after this Paul Divine left the two spies to their own worries as he returned to his broom cupboard, and after thinking about what he wanted to say to Special Agent Formby, he walked over to Alice Tarraway`s office and asked her to send off an urgent message to Earth. The message read; 'I now believe that the chance of the Claytons being the Aldebran spies has increased to the point that they occupy the number one position on my list as of this moment, unfortunately as yet I have no proof, only my own inner gut feelings. Please check to see if they are genuine, or impostors. This would mean the real geologists are now dead, so I suggest that you contact Mars, I see from the computer records that this was the Claytons last port of call. If you can please obtain any photographs or failing that their descriptions that Mars may have of the couple, it might be a great help to us.'