“We should hold the meeting soon. The list of issues that need discussing is growing by the day,” said Russell.
“Yes, I wanted to wait for the results of our refinery experiment, but since that’s obviously succeeded,” Marlene pointed at the row of test tubes on the table that were filling with more and more differently colored liquids, “I’ll hold the meeting this week. It’s time to form a new council.”
Dr. Dressel turned around. “Has another year really gone by? Time is passing quicker than I ever imagined.”
“Time itself isn’t, but the year actually is passing quicker,” said Russell. Their new home planet circled the central star of the solar system in just three hundred and twelve days, although the days here were about half an hour longer than on Earth. They had gotten used to living according to their new calendar, but Marlene still found it difficult to accept that the year ended on November eighth.
“What’s on the agenda for the meeting so far?” asked Albert.
“Besides setting up a school for the children, we also need to vote on building a refinery next to the oil fields—and what we want to and should produce with it. Could you prepare a report, Doctor?”
Cashmore nodded. “No problem.”
“Good. In my opinion we should start by concentrating on fuel production. That will be hard enough. The refinery needs to be manned and guarded at all times, because there are wotans in the area. That will mean less people to work the fields.”
“No, the refinery will be fully automatic,” said the chemist.
“In any case, I am of the opinion that we should get started on developing the combustion engines.” This had obviously turned into an obsession for Albert. “Then we can build engines for vehicles, as well as pumps and generators.”
“Generators?” asked Russell.
“Yes, for producing energy. The reactor won’t provide electricity indefinitely.”
Marlene shook her head. “There’s still enough uranium in the reactor to last another twenty years. There’s no hurry.” They had taken their small travelling-wave reactor with them from Russell’s Planet, and it would ensure a supply of energy for some time to come. “And anyway, we can’t build a generator since we don’t have any copper for the coil windings. Maybe we can extract enough copper from the cables and machines we already have, but there won’t be enough for the large-scale electrification of our colony,” said Dr. Dressel.
“Drew has found copper deposits in the mountains east of the camp,” said Jenny.
“In that case we could build a mine there and extract copper,” said Albert.
Marlene laughed. “Hey, guys, we’ve only got around forty adults here and a handful of kids and toddlers. We’ve got enough on our plates growing food, and now we’re adding a school and a refinery, we’re at the limit of what we can manage. Perhaps once the children are older and the colony has reached a decent size. Until then, the forge will be limited to the production of tools.”
Albert shrugged in resignation. “Whatever you say, Madam President.”
Marlene rolled her eyes. Albert always did that when decisions didn’t go his way. Well, she would have her revenge that evening!
Soon after arriving on the planet, they had voted for the first council of four members, who were responsible for deciding their fate, and since then new elections had been held every year. The other members of the council had changed, but Marlene had been repeatedly voted as president of the council by the overwhelming majority. Everyone presumed it would be the same again this year. They didn’t have a parliamentary system—the colony was too small for that—instead, the council served a mainly administrative function. Compared to back home on Earth, they had a system of direct democracy and made important decisions based on the votes of all colonists.
“And what else is on the agenda?” asked Russell.
“Travis Richards has proposed the idea of introducing a monetary system.”
“Money? Have we really got to that stage already?”
“I don’t think so,” said Marlene hesitantly. At the moment, every colonist had fixed tasks, aside from regular shifts in the fields, and the rations were divided up evenly among them all. In any case, there were no consumer goods that anybody could have bought with money. But some colonists were dissatisfied with their jobs, and although they tried to consider everyone’s wishes when they divided up the work, there was no real individual freedom.
“At the moment we’re living in a kind of communist system. If we want to have a free society at some stage, we won’t be able to get around having money. Unfortunately we don’t have any economists in our midst, but we’ll discuss the issue.”
Russell shrugged. “What else?”
“We want to wrap up some long-standing issues. Donald Bell has revised the draft for the constitution, and I’d like to bring it to the vote.”
Albert groaned. “Again? It’s never-ending.”
Marlene nodded. “And I expect that some of the paragraphs will have to be revised again. For Dillon and some of the others, the paragraphs on individual freedom don’t go far enough.”
“Is it really that important to have a unanimous vote on the constitution?” asked Jenny Baldwin.
“Yes. I want all the colonists, without exception, to stand behind it.” Marlene paused. “And then there’s the question of another expedition.”
Russell nodded. “Yes, that proposal came from me.”
Dr. Dressel ran a hand through his tousled hair. “Is that really necessary? Shouldn’t we concentrate on the area immediately around our colony? Expeditions are dangerous. On the last one in the lowlands, some of the team almost died.”
Marlene nodded. She was filled with horror at the memory of their camp being attacked by wotans in the night. It had been sheer luck that Chris Neaman’s leg hadn’t needed to be amputated. “Yes, it was a close shave. But I agree with Russell, we need to get to know our new planet better. We only have one single drone with a range of thirty miles, but I’d like to know what’s out there—including what dangers—in a sixty-mile radius. Better to take our chances on a carefully prepared expedition than to be taken by surprise in the colony by some unknown menace.
“And where to this time?” asked Jenny Baldwin. She smiled. As a biologist, she obviously wanted to be part of the expedition.
“South,” said Russell. “We’ve explored the highlands up to the edge of the range of hills, but we don’t know what lies beyond them.”
“How many people do you want to take with you?” asked Marlene.
“Five. Including three fully equipped soldiers. And a biologist and a geologist.”
“That’ll be me,” said Jenny with a smile.
“Anything else?” asked Russell.
Marlene shook her head. “Those were the most important points on the agenda. Or does one of you have anything else to add?”
John Dressel nodded. “I have something else. We need to talk about it finally.”
Marlene was all ears. “What is it, John?”
“The other transporters in the solar system. We need to decide, or it will be too late.”
Marlene bit her lip. She had pushed this issue to the back of her mind for a long time, but the physicist was right. After endless discussions, the general opinion in the camp was that the transporter technology posed a threat to humanity. At the most recent vote, two-thirds of the colonists had agreed that the destruction of the transporter on Earth had been a good decision.
“Five years have passed since we arrived here. With enough persistence and money, that’s about the amount of time that would have been needed on Earth to get a rag-tag Mars mission off the ground. It’s possible that people will reach the transporter on Mars soon. So I’m in favor of implementing the plan and destroying the remaining transporters in the solar system with the atomic bombs we have left. Either we do it now, or it will be too late,” said the physicist.
Marlene was in agreement, but there were still a nu
mber of people in the colony who hoped to return to Earth via Mars, above all her former deputy Ben Hawke, who was anything but satisfied with his role in the colony. “Do we really have to do it, John? I mean, if people mess about with the transporter on Mars, it doesn’t pose a risk to Earth. In the worst-case scenario they end up destroying Mars—which is a tolerable risk.” Marlene immediately realized the enormity of classifying the destruction of a planet in the solar system as a tolerable risk, but she didn’t have time to pursue this thought, since Dr. Dressel began to vehemently contradict her.
“I’m not bothered about the sphere on Mars. But they’ll take everything they find out about the alien technology back to Earth and start experimenting with it in research laboratories.”
“But you’re a scientist yourself. Don’t you trust your colleagues to act responsibly?”
John Dressel laughed. “In the course of my career I’ve seen so much incompetence in laboratories and met so many scientists who were prepared to throw caution to the wind for the sake of spectacular research results.” He shook his head. “No, I trust a few of them, but by no means all. And only all would be enough. Thanks to Russell I was able to communicate with the transporter intelligence myself. A technology that can manipulate the gravitational field unconditionally is so risky that a tiny mistake would be all it takes. Once you know how it works, you can produce stable black holes in small laboratories.”
“But if it isn’t that hard, humans will work it out anyway,” Albert pointed out.
“No,” replied Dressel. “Humans aren’t even close to understanding the physical and mathematical foundations. By the normal route, it will still be thousands of years before humans take that decisive step.”
“Well alright,” agreed Marlene. “We’ll discuss it at the meeting. Prepare a report, but be prepared for strong resistance.”
“Will do. Anything else?”
“Yes, something else has occurred to me,” said Marlene. “We need to finally agree on a name for our planet and the colony.”
Russell nodded. “You’re right. It’s total chaos at the moment. Some people are calling it New California, others have gotten used to Avalon. I prefer the latter.”
“Marianna Waits has cobbled together a group that wants to call it Honua,” said Jenny.
“Honua? Where does that come from?” asked Dr. Cashmore.
“Marianna has Hawaiian ancestry. Apparently it’s what they used to call Earth.”
“Aha,” said Russell. “And what should we call the colony? Do people have other suggestions for that, too?”
“Rhonda has often called it Kaupunki,” said Drew.
“What?” asked Marlene.
“It’s the Finnish word for city.”
“Well, I dunno . . .”
What about Eridu?” suggested Dr. Dressel.
“Does the word have a deeper meaning?” asked Marlene.
“It was the name of the oldest city on Earth. A Sumerian city in Mesopotamia.”
“We’ll discuss it at the meeting,” said Marlene, and brought the discussion to a close.
Chapter 11
“Holy crap!” Albert Bridgeman looked at Russell with undisguised horror. While Russell had been telling his friend about his illness, his eyes had been glued to the ground. Albert put down the jeep axle he had just welded beside the embers of the fire, so that it would cool down slowly. “Are you sure?”
Russell nodded. “Two months. Maybe three. Max.”
His friend sat down beside him in silence. Since they had gotten to know each other on the suicide mission with the transporter twenty years ago, they had remained close friends. Albert was now seventy-three years old and had never been bothered about leaving Earth behind. He had thrown himself into setting up a forge, which meanwhile produced pretty decent steel alloys from the iron ore discovered in the mountains and the coal mined at the edge of the lowlands. He had also improvised the welding machine together with Lee.
“But Lindwall must be able to do something. Surely he can help you fight this,” said Albert.
“He doesn’t have the right medication and can’t improvise anything out of plants, either. But even on Earth there wouldn’t be a cure. I’m a dead man.”
“Oh Jesus.” Albert obviously didn’t know what to say, and stared into the fire of the forge.
Russell lowered his tired eyes to the ground. “I shouldn’t complain. I’ve had a full and exciting life. I could have died twenty years ago during the transports. Instead I’ve helped to colonize an alien planet and brought up three children.”
He glanced up at his friend. Unlike most of the other colonists, Albert had remained single. But he didn’t seem to miss not being in a relationship. He drew all his energy from his work and the forge. Right now, Russell envied him. He didn’t have to worry about what would happen to his family after he was gone.
“Christ, Russell, you’re only sixty-three!”
“Lately I’ve been feeling twice as old. If it’s time for me to go, that’s okay.” He paused “But I’m frightened. Frightened of death and of dying.”
Albert nodded slowly. “I think we all live with that fear, no matter what our age. Although I’m also approaching the end of my life, I don’t let myself think about death. I hope it might never be necessary. I hope that at some point I just fall down dead and it’s over. Getting ill and knowing that in the near future . . .” He didn’t finish his sentence.
Russell picked up some tongs. The metal was pleasantly cool to the touch. “I don’t want to lie in bed and slowly suffocate to death. And above all, I don’t want my wife and kids to be sitting beside me watching me die a miserable death.” Days ago he had lain awake all night and come to a decision. How was it possible to sleep when you knew that in a few weeks your eyes would close forever?
Albert glanced up. “You’re planning something. The tone of your voice . . . You don’t want to . . .?”
Russell interrupted him with a grim smile. “No, I won’t kill myself. But I’m planning something else.”
Chapter 12
Russell tossed and turned in bed. He had been sweating again, and the wet sheet stuck to his skin. It had been his last night with Ellen, and he should have enjoyed it, but his illness had taken away his libido, too. His wife was fast asleep, and he could hear her slow and regular breathing. When they first met, they had been prisoners. She had shot her psychically ill husband dead in self-defense. Russell himself, in a knee-jerk moment of insanity, had shot dead the drink-driver who had killed his family in a car crash. Joining the transporter project had saved them both from execution, but the mission had been so damn dangerous, they had hardly stood a chance of surviving. In between their individual transports—which were equivalent to a game of Russian roulette—they had fallen in love. Perhaps their relationship had begun, in part, out of a desperate desire for intimacy in the face of death, but even after they had settled into an unlikely yet stable life together on New California, their mutual affection had deepened, not least due to the children. After his first wife and son had been wrenched out of his life so violently twenty years ago, he couldn’t have imagined ever having a family again. But with time the pain had subsided, and today he could watch his children grow up on New California without the sorrows of the past casting a permanent shadow over his new-found happiness. He would have loved to put his arms around Ellen and curl up close to her, but he didn’t want to wake her.
It was early morning, long before dawn, when he finally got up. He slipped silently into the living room and closed the door of the bedroom. His kit was lying next to the hearth. He checked it again. The rifle, a hundred rounds of ammunition, a pistol with a spare magazine. Some tools, food for several days, a spare set of clothes, a first-aid kit. That would have to do—until the end of his life. He took a little bottle of oil, poured some onto a cloth and used it to clean the slide of his handgun.
A sound from behind him made him wheel round. Ellen stumbled into the room with bleary
eyes. She sat down on the chair next to Russell and grasped his hand. He put aside the gun and the cloth, kneeled down in front of her and lay his head in her lap.
“I don’t want you to go,” she whispered.
“And I don’t want to go,” he replied quietly.
“Then don’t!”
Russell was quiet for a long time. They had had this conversation so many times over the last few days.
“I have to go.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
Although he didn’t look at her, he knew from her trembling that she was crying.
“Yes, I know. But I don’t understand.”
Russell lifted his head and looked into her tear-filled eyes. “Because I don’t want you to see what happens to me in the next few months. I don’t want to die like that. Lying in bed, getting weaker, being sick, screaming, turning into a skeleton because I can’t eat anymore.” He paused briefly. “I want to have one final adventure.”
“Wouldn’t you rather die with your family and friends around you, than out there, alone?”
Russell was silent. He didn’t know how to answer her question without sounding hurtful.
Ellen was encouraged by his silence and carried on talking. “I don’t care what you look like at the end. And Lindwall can give you morphine for the pain. Then at least I can hold your hand when you leave us, and we can bury you here. If you’re out there somewhere, we’ll never know how you died.”
Russell shook his head. “It won’t take long. And it doesn’t matter where my body is after I’m gone. It’s one thing for you to watch me die. But then the kids have to watch too, and I don’t want that. I want them to remember me the way I am now—and not see me gradually deteriorate.”
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