A Handful of Stars (Star Svensdotter #2)

by Dana Stabenow

A boy a few years younger than Leif popped up from the middle of a bundle of babies. “Father?”

  “Can you manage two more for an hour?”

  “Always room for two more babies, Father,” the little boy said. He had red hair and freckles and intelligent green eyes. He too seemed overly tall for his age.

  I said in an undertone, “Is he old enough to care for all these children? He’s little more than a child himself.”

  Lavoliere shrugged and said, “We trust him with our own.” I looked at Caleb, and he nodded slightly. When in Rome. Still, I was uneasy.

  “I could stay with them,” Leif offered.

  Eleanor’s and Elaine’s faces fell, and I hid a grin. “It’s okay. Come on.”

  We adjourned to their galley, which had a long narrow table bolted down the center with benches along each side and footslings beneath every place. Elaine, Eleanor, and Eugenia jostled for a place next to Leif, calling for a reprimand from Mother Eve, who with her olive skin and pale hair looked like their older sister. Mother Juliet sat between her four daughters Jane, Juliana, Joanna, and Joyce. All five of them were slender with fair skin, long dark hair, and blue eyes. In between appetizer and entree, David and what appeared to be his twin brother arrived.

  “So who’s minding the babies?” I inquired.

  The two boys and the man exchanged an uncomfortable glance. “I’m not David, I’m Daniel,” one boy said, “and this is my brother Douglas.” They took their seats. “David is still in the nursery.”

  “Oh,” I said. Suddenly I was very, very glad Caleb had refused the hospitality of the Conestoga for the night.

  Lavoliere said uneasily, “It is confusing, isn’t it? Sometimes I can’t tell them apart myself.”

  “Pardon me, Doctor,” Caleb said, “but I see only you and the two—er—mothers here. Are there no other adults aboard ship?”

  “Good heavens yes,” Lavoliere said.

  Caleb waited. Lavoliere did not elaborate. Caleb smiled a friendly smile and said, “Where are they?”

  Lavoliere gestured vaguely with a fork. “About ship on their duties, or asleep, or EVA on 7877Tomorrow. On a ship this size we must work and eat in shifts to accommodate our crew, you see.”

  I have never enjoyed freefall and neither has my esophagus. I was trying not to gag over a second bite of tofu gyoza spicy enough to clear out an elephant’s nasal passages when I said, “What precisely are you working at?”

  There was a sudden silence around the table. I swallowed, painfully, and looked up to see everyone else looking away. “A topic for after lunch,” Lavoliere said smoothly.

  After lunch the children and the two mothers, who had said nothing much beyond “pass the salt, please” and “thank you,” cleared the table and disappeared up and down various passageways, leaving us alone with Lavoliere and more coffee.

  “So, Doctor,” I said, “what precisely are you doing here? You seem to be dead in space, and that rock you’re moored to doesn’t look as if you’ve gone in for mining in a big way.”

  “No, only a little silicon and some nickel, enough to trade for such supplies as we need.”

  “Then what?”

  Lavoliere seemed to be thinking it over. Appearing to come to a decision, he met my eyes squarely. “Have you ever heard of the BioScience Engineering Committee?”

  “I believe I have,” I said calmly. “Ah, on Terra, the American Alliance formed such a committee in 1995 to explore research ethics into genetic engineering. The committee was to form patent laws, mediate disputes between academia and industry, and act as a clearing house of information to prevent overlapping studies and mistakes in research.”

  He smiled. “It was formed in 1994, actually, but for the rest your memory is remarkably good.” He paused.

  “I remember there were all kinds of experts on that committee, genetic engineers, lawyers, philosophers, entrepreneurs. I think they even included a few members of the general public.”

  “Again correct.”

  “Were you a member of that committee, Doctor?”

  “I was, for a time. I resigned.”

  “Why? Seemed pretty worthwhile. They were even working on giving it the legal clout to make private industry and the Alliance government toe the line in…” My voice trailed away as I saw his expression.

  Lavoliere inhaled and held it for a moment. “The specialty of our community is genetic research. What with the restrictions applied on Terra to splicing and cloning, we wanted room for intellectual freedom and experimentation. My own specialty is botany, and I think I’ve come up with something that will be of special interest to you in your current endeavor. You’re calling them homemade homes, are you not?”

  “Until a better name presents itself.”

  Lavoliere smiled again, his gentle quality tempered this time with indulgence, as if I were a child to be congratulated on the acquisition of a new toy. “We’ve adapted a plant to grow in vacuum. It’s a genetically engineered weed with warm sap and a layer of superinsulating fur. We—”

  “A comet creeper,” I said.

  “You’ve read Freeman Dyson, then?”

  “Some,” I admitted. “Have you been keeping abreast of the work the UER is doing in orbit around Venus?”

  “I wasn’t aware of the existence of a Venusian probe.”

  “It’s not a probe, it’s a manned station.”

  “Really.”

  “Yes, they’re doing some very advanced work there in cause-and-effect atmosphere manufacturing.” I caught Caleb’s ironic eye and added, “Or so my meteorologist informs me. I’m not all that up in atmospheric dynamics. Any chance of taking a look at your work on Tomorrow?”

  “Certainly. Would you like anything more to eat? No? Then, Elaine, you may return this tray to the galley.” We detoured through the nursery to pick up the twins, who were fussing a bit. We pulled ourselves back down to the lock, suited up, and stepped out into space, Caleb and I crowding together to make room in the Cub for Lavoliere.

  At close range Tomorrow looked like a bald coconut a hundred meters across. “We’re hoping to create a cover of adequate thickness to produce enough oh-two to provide an atmosphere on the surface of the planetoid,” he told us. We circled the surface a few times, noting several p-suited technicians working at what looked like mining pure and simple to me. None of them looked very busy. We thanked Lavoliere for the tour, extended an invitation to visit Outpost, and dropped him off outside the lock of the Conestoga.

  As we were streaking away from the Conestoga Caleb said, “Intellectual freedom, comet creeper, my ass! They’ve been practicing gene splicing on each other! Those—those litters of children, all carbon copies of themselves!”

  “The stuff of human life is very easily made,” I said. “Lavoliere believes that the stuff of human life at its primary level is interchangeable with that of all other life.”

  “So?”

  “So he thinks there is nothing wrong with gene manipulation for the betterment of the species as a whole.”

  “But we could engineer our own extinction. What was it the BioScience Engineering Committee said? That when we eliminate bad genes, we narrow our gene pool?”

  “What about treatment of genetic disorders by altering genes in sperm and egg cells? Caleb, survival of the fittest and natural selection may no longer be the only factors influencing the evolution of human life. We have reached the point where we can control our evolution and change the world we live in without waiting for natural forces to operate.”

  “That sounds scary. And boring.”

  “What’s boring about universal twenty-twenty vision? What’s boring about eradicating dental caries? What’s boring about eliminating Hudson’s Disease in utero with genetic surgery?”

  “What happens to subsequent generations?” Caleb responded. “And when we perfect these techniques, do potential parents then have a responsibility to turn out perfect children? I don’t like it, Star. I don’t like it at all.”

&n
bsp; “It’s their business, Caleb.”

  “Where’s the Tallship?” he asked bluntly.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, and sighed. “Caleb, like it or not, we came here for the same reasons Lavoliere did. Elbow room, freedom from government restrictions, unlimited raw materials and unlimited power with which to shape them. We came to make a future different from what we would have had on Terra or Luna. I want to build astrocondos. Lavoliere wants to build better genes. He’s not interfering with my astrocondos. We’re not going to interfere with his genes.”

  “Star, it’s just—those kids, all those kids.”

  “They look healthy enough,” I said, but I knew what he meant. “None of them looked unhappy or abused.”

  “But who asked them what they wanted?”

  “Time enough to find that out when they grow up. For now they are their parents’ responsibility. Not ours.”

  Into the dead silence one of the twins said, “Daddy?”

  “What, honey?”

  “Arm owie, Daddy.”

  It wasn’t until we were ashore on No Return, where the inmates were surprised but pleased to see us again so soon, that we discovered a patch of shamskin on each twin’s right forearm, covering identical square patches of missing skin.

  I tackled Caleb heading for the lock.

  This was the man they called the Iceman behind my back, the man whose voice I’d heard raised to a shout once in my life, and that was before we were married. He wasn’t shouting now, he was moving, fast, toward the airlock and his pressure suit and the Cub, to hoist sail back to the Conestoga and eviscerate Lavoliere. I knew it as surely as I knew my own name.

  I kicked off from one wall and drove my shoulder into the backs of his knees. We went tumbling end over end before fetching up against a bulkhead. Before we could bounce off I hooked one foot beneath a sling, wrapped my arms and other leg around Caleb’s body, and hung on. Every time he managed to free a hand or a foot I grabbed for it and wrapped myself around him again.

  I’m not much of a fighter; when it comes right down to it I’m big enough to scare away the faint of heart, and I hire people who take care of whoever I can’t talk out of combat. Caleb was one of the people I’d hired. Under normal circumstances, he could have slapped me like a gnat and that would have been the end of it. This time his opponent had the advantage, because however angry he was I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. All I had to do was wait him out. The low gee helped. Leif watched, white-faced, from the companionway as Hatsuko and her fellow miners placed bets behind him.

  “Caleb!” I said urgently. “Caleb, take it easy. Ssshhh, take it easy, take it easy, love. It’s all right, take it easy. It’s all right now, it’s all right.” I clung to him grimly and kept talking, saying I didn’t know what. After a long time, I felt his big body slow against mine.

  “Caleb?” Leif’s voice came from behind me.

  Caleb didn’t answer.

  “Caleb?” Leif said. “I grew in a test tube. Do you hate me, too?”

  The thin, shaky question hung in the air. Caleb stilled. I waited, unmoving. Finally Caleb relaxed, the breath sighing out of him. “I’m all right, Star.”

  “Sure?”

  “Get off me.”

  I pulled myself away. I was shaking and I felt bruised all over. Caleb’s face was taut with a tenuous control. I looked at him once and then looked away. “I’m going back to the Conestoga.”

  “I’m coming, too.”

  “No,” I said without turning. “No, you are not. I’ll deal with this alone.”

  “Star!”

  “No! I can talk to Lavoliere as head of Outpost. You can barely talk at all. I’ll handle it.” He opened his mouth and I looked him straight in the eye. “That is an order, Chief. Do I have to call up the station log to make it official?”

  There was dead silence in the inner lock. Caleb’s green eyes, usually as impassioned as glacier ice, burned with barely suppressed rage. We stared at each other for maybe a full minute. It felt more like an hour. Then he turned abruptly to snatch up the twins. He shouldered his way into the corridor and out of my sight. I swallowed, and said, “Hatsuko?”

  She came into the inner lock, looking wary. “Star?”

  “I need a copilot.”

  She relaxed a little, and nodded. “My pleasure.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Leif said.

  I put one hand on his shoulder and said, “No way, boy. You got off the Conestoga once with a whole skin. Let’s not try your luck.”

  He pushed his chin out. “Either I’m part of this family, or I’m not.”

  “It’s not a question of whether you’re a part of it—”

  “Elizabeth was ten and she fought for Terranovan independence.”

  “That was a question of circumstance, not choice.”

  “Baloney. She blackmailed you into letting her go with you on that mass capsule and you caved in. Archy told me all about it.” He met my eyes and said firmly, “You’re the one who’s always talking about responsibility, and everybody contributing. I’ve been driving a solarsled for Emaa since we got to the Belt, and Caleb’s checked me out on small arms. Plus, I’m a Petri kid, and I’ve got a better handle on the way these people feel than you ever will.” He surveyed my frustrated expression with open satisfaction, and added, “And this is family business. No offense,” he said over his shoulder to Hatsuko.

  “None taken,” she replied. I glared at her and she looked back at me with big eyes and a wounded expression. I looked back at Leif. He was thirteen now, and tall for his age. Irrelevantly, I remembered reading in the p-suit maintenance log that he’d had his suit in for upgrading the week before we left. Upgrading and enlarging; the kid had broad shoulders. “All right, Leif, suit up.”

  I got Hatsuko to remove the PVA cables from No Return’s two flivvers on our way out. We took them with us. I wasn’t taking any chances with Caleb.

  We boarded the Conestoga for the second time that day. Leif took charge the moment the lock cycled. He pulled himself into the passageway, and with a disconcerting dignity said, “Dr. Lavoliere? I believe you have something that belongs to my sister and brother. We’d like it back, please. Now.”

  Lavoliere did not waste our time or his by attempting to deny the obvious. Lavoliere was, indeed, charmingly and anxiously apologetic. He said an overeager biotech had overstepped his authority in acquiring the samples. He said the tech would be suitably disciplined. Leif said that as a Petri kid he quite understood, and Lavoliere said was Leif indeed a Petri child, and seemed to relax a bit. They chatted while we waited. Soon Elaine (or Eleanor or Eugenia) arrived and handed over a thin, flat lab box that contained the sections of the twins’ skin, Lavoliere said. I accepted it with an involuntary shudder. “And I do hope this unfortunate incident will in no way affect any future relationship the Conestoga may have with Outpost.”

  I busied myself with the oh-two feeder inside my helmet.

  One of the very first things on-the-job training in Terranova’s school of command taught me was that Thou Shalt Not Allow Thyself The Indulgence Of Saying What Thou Really Thinkst. Or showing how you really feel, in the face of those who manifestly, diametrically oppose those feelings. Individual beliefs, personal ethics, ethnic pride, and national patriotism are all subordinate, firstly to the safety of the crew, and secondly to the successful completion of the mission. One-point-eight astronomical units from Terranova, it was even more imperative to work the brakes on my instincts. It would be all too easy to start shoving my way through the crowd, instead of leading it.

  I believe in freedom of choice. I believe everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—old words, I know, some would say old-fashioned, but I don’t. I believe implicitly in the right of a like-minded people to determine their own destiny, so long as that determination is not achieved at the expense or to the danger of others. It is a rule I try very hard to live by. It defines what I am.

  I saw Leif looking
at me with barely concealed apprehension. I forced myself to remember that the twins were alive and mostly well. When I was sure I could speak with some degree of composure I raised my eyes. I caught the gaze of the leader of the Conestoga, and I said, slowly and distinctly, so there could be no possibility of any misunderstanding, “Lavoliere. Do not attempt to trade with Outpost. Avoid contact with my people. I’ll make that easy for you. The moment I return home, I am going to place the Conestoga, its crew, and 7877Tomorrow under my personal interdiction. If you or any member of your adult crew attempts to board our station, I will burn you down in the lock, myself.”

  His dark eyes widened and his face paled. Beside me I felt Leif freeze in place, hardly breathing.

  “However. Should your children, once they are grown, wish to escape this, this Brave New World hatchery of yours, I will be only too glad to welcome them on board with open arms. I trust I have made myself clear.”

  We left. Halfway to No Return Leif said suddenly, “That’s why you never touch me.”

  Lost in a pleasant contemplation of several different methods of bringing about Lavoliere’s slow and painful death, I did not respond at once to that remote voice over my commlink. Leif said more loudly, “That is why you never touch me.”

  “What?”

  “You think I’m like them. You never touch me.” He was silent for a moment. “You think I was hatched, too.”

  “What?”

  “It’s true, Star. You never wanted me anyway.”

  I was still raw from the confrontation with Lavoliere or I never would have said what I did then. “Wanted you? I never knew you existed. You’re something Mother dreamed up out of a frustrated grandmother complex.”

  There was a brief, weighty silence. Of course I couldn’t see his face. Then his young voice said hardily, “I know.”

  I swallowed. My mouth was dry, and I sipped a few mouthfuls of water from the nozzle inside my helmet. “I’m sorry, Leif. That wasn’t very tactful.”

  “It’s true.” Still that hard little voice.

  I hesitated. “Yes. But so what? You’re here now. You’re a fact, you’re a person, you’re working your way up to being needed, to contributing. And you’ve always been wanted by someone, you’ve always had Mother. The situation between you and those children is completely different—they’re experiments in gene splicing, for God’s sake, not children created out of love and need. As for my never paying any attention to you, that’s nonsense. You can’t say I don’t listen to you, and monitor your progress, and—”