Amanda grinned. “They've got a girl —”
Brenda chimed back in. “Or boy —”
I finished it. “In every residential area.” I'd only heard it about a dozen times.
“So what do you want to do tonight?” Brenda said, changing the subject. She was 13, and still a little awkward about boy talk.
“We could hit the movies,” I said. “They're playing a 'Little House on the Prairie' marathon.”
Amanda winced. “Seen it. Don't need to see it again.”
“Me too, half-pint,” Brenda said. “There's never anything but old-time stuff and Westerns at the movies.”
“It’s brainwashing,” I said. “They want your brain to be nice and clean for the colony.”
Colony life was going to be nothing like life on Earth, or so the teachers kept reminding us. We wouldn't have houses, or stores, or highways. Anything we'd need, we'd have to make using the limited resources we had on board and whatever we found on the planet. To prepare us, “entertainment” options trended toward films about pioneers and the Old West. When it wasn't turning us into cowboys, the theater showed movies about the end of the world.
A single syllable chased the vision of the Cowboys of the Apocalypse out of my head.
“Hi.”
I jumped. The voice was deep, and close enough to my ear to tickle. I turned my head in time to see someone straighten behind me. I squinted upward and then swallowed hard.
“Hi,” I said. I saw perfect teeth. And blonde hair. And blue eyes. And boy.
Oh, boy. “Creep much?”
He grinned. “What are you guys doing tonight?”
Tom was a grade ahead of me and president of his class. He grew up in Alaska. His Dad was a survival-skills teacher, his Mom was a geologist. I’d learned all this when he’d come in to talk to all the new students. Part of me must have been listening, because I remembered it. The rest of me was tingling and, in my head at least, shooting around like a comet. I know I was nodding at the right things but I had only two conscious thoughts in my head: “Pretty” and “Mine”.
I shrugged. “Oh, you know, taking over the ship and going to party with the Marslings.”
“Cute,” Tom said. “If that doesn’t work out, the sophomore class is holding a dance in the cafeteria at seven thirty. Music, food. Just like a sim, but real.”
Amanda put her arms over her head to stretch. I scowled because I knew she was really making sure Tom saw the difference between her chest and mine. “Maybe we’ll try to fit it in.”
Tom shrugged. “Your call.” He looked at me. “Hope to see you there.”
I watched him leave, feeling like I’d been hit with a heavy pillow. Amanda laughed. “Someone’s got a boyfriend.”
I scowled again. “I don’t —.” An alarm siren cut me off, leaving my mouth hanging open. I sort of recognized the sound from safety training but any doubt vanished when the captain’s voice sounded over the intercom system.
“This is not a drill. Drop what you are doing and return to quarters immediately. All hands to general quarters.”
The message repeated on a loop, and the siren continued pulsing.
“What’s going on?” Brenda said. She sounded scared. She looked it, too.
I took her hand. “We’re leaving orbit in five days, it’s probably a maneuver or something.”
She nodded but didn’t look convinced.
“Let’s get back to quarters,” I said. “We’ll find out faster if we’re online anyway.”
It was a bomb. It would have taken a nuke to blow up the ship entirely, but the bombers hadn’t been that ambitious. They’d rigged the explosive to take out the water tanks, instead. Spaceman Jen had spotted the bomb during a routine spacewalk and had died moving it away from the tanks.
The Walton was one of six ships in the colony mission, one from each of Earth’s inhabited continents. The bombs were safely defused on four of the ships but the European Union vessel, the Richard Branson, wasn’t so lucky. No one was hurt but the tanks had blown, leaving everyone onboard the Branson very high and mostly dry.
We were confined to quarters and put on emergency rations until the crews could get a handle on what happened. I was just getting used to the idea of living on board the Walton, I'd even made a couple of friends; now the whole colony mission was in jeopardy. If we missed our window, we wouldn’t get another shot at the Jupiter slingshot maneuver for years. Then what? The Mars colony was barely self-sustaining and would never be able to handle a 300,000-person population explosion. Would we just orbit until the next window? Go back to Earth?
We got our answer three days later.
“Tuesday, at 07:20, the colony ships Sam Walton, the Rupert Murdoch, the Gates-Sawiris, the Carlo Helu and the Li Ka-Shing will leave Earth orbit for rendezvous with the planet Jupiter,” Lt. Quinn told us the day after the lockdown ended. “Then it's no stops until we're at Proxima Centauri.”
“What about the Richard Branson?” a tall man yelled from the middle of the dining hall. “What about the terrorists?”
The two bombers on the Branson had been caught. They’d made it easy by sending a message to Earth, crowing about their success. They’d claimed to be part of No Escape, a group of mixed-faith religious fanatics who’d decided the colony missions defied God’s plan to let the Earth die.
“The Branson will not be joining us on this leg of our trip. Repairs and resupply have pushed them past the current launch window,” Quinn said. “They will be fully ready for the next window, two years from now.” It looked like he took a deep breath; then he gripped the edges of his lectern. “The No Escape conspirators on this ship, and the four others, have yet to be identified.”
I’d never seen a riot before but Quinn’s answer seemed about to cause one. The terrorists were still on board! Someone had planted a bomb on the ship, and they were still free to cause trouble.
Quinn signaled for silence, shouting to be heard above the din. It took a couple of minutes for people to chill. “We’ve identified a list of potential targets and have placed them under high security for the duration of the emergency, however long that might be. Meanwhile, we are continuing our investigation.”
Quinn took a few questions and then left for another meeting. Most of us stayed put, talking about the terrorists. Dad figured there was not much the terrorists could do with all their potential targets under guard. “Plus, where are they going to get more explosives?”
“Colony stores,” a woman answered. “There are literally tons of explosives in there.”
Dad nodded. “True, but only the crew has access to the stores.”
“If nothing else,” Mom said, “the terrorists will be dead by the time we get to P.C.”
As we filed out of the cafeteria, I felt a hand on my arm. I turned to see Tom.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.” He grinned. “We missed the dance.”
I nodded.
“How about a movie tonight instead?”
I smiled. School wouldn't be back in session until we'd left orbit so I had a bonus weekend. “Let me ask my parents.”
It took some work but I convinced Mom and Dad that the movie theater was not a likely terrorist target. Tom and I got to the movies just as one got started, a real oldie about overpopulation and global warming.
During the film, I looked over at Tom and saw that he was looking at me. I leaned over. “Are you staring at me?”
“Maybe,” he said, catching my hand in his. He lifted it to his lips and kissed it. “Watch the movie.”
Afterward, we got some nachos in the Star Lounge. The big window was about three-quarters full of Earth. Even from here the world looked dingy, and I knew from school that the oceans used to be a lot less green.
“Do you think it will get that bad?” I said, pointing at the view with my chin. “Riots and people making crackers out of dead bodies?”
Tom shrugged. “Maybe. That's what everybody was saying before we left.”<
br />
“Do you ever feel guilty that we got to leave?”
He shook his head. “I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”
“What about the people still down there?”
“They'll be OK once they get their heads on straight.” Tom grinned at me and took my hand. “Come on. Leave the nachos. I want to show you something.”
Tom led me to a part of the habitat ring I hadn’t seen before. We stopped in front of a door and he put his hand on the biolock. He smiled. “Come meet my family.”
Tom's Dad, Tigh, looked just like Tom, but old. He also looked tired, and like he hadn't shaved in a couple of days. When we came into the family room he only looked at Tom. “Who's this?”
“This is Hayley. You said you were looking for –”
Tigh held up his hand. “Who are her parents?”
“The O'Briens. Her Mom is a programmer, Dad works in Engineering.”
Tigh nodded. “She'll do.”
I was doing my best to follow the conversation, but I felt like I was missing something.
Tigh sighed and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. When he finally looked at me, his eyes seemed wet. “Hayley, today is going to be hard on you, and I'm sorry. This wasn't part of the plan.” He smiled thinly. “At least not my plan.”
The air felt thick, and I swallowed to clear it out of my throat. “What are you talking about?”
“We're going to stop the colony mission.”
Oh, crap. “You planted the bomb?”
He nodded.
“You killed Spaceman Jen!”
He shook his head. “That was an accident. No one was supposed to get hurt.”
I turned to run, but Tom was leaning against the door. I glared at him. “Are you part of this, too?”
He nodded but didn't look at me. I turned back to Tigh. “I'm not helping you do anything!”
He nodded. “You won't have to. Just look scared.”
That wasn't hard to do once he tied me to a chair in front of the Vid and started recording. He waved Tom out of range of the camera before identifying himself as the No Escape bomber.
“Behold, he cometh with the clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they that pierced him; and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn over him,” Tigh said, reading from his fone, screen. “I am the Alpha and the Omega, saith the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come.”
Tigh looked back at the Vid camera. “We live in a time of wonders but have forgotten where these wonders come from.” He shook his head. “We sin and then try to escape God's judgment by fleeing to the stars. But we can't.” Tigh looked at his right hand and then raised it to show the camera. “I have given myself to the Lord and this is His hand. With this hand, He can reach you, even here in the darkness.”
Tigh had started out calm and quiet but his voice rose as he spoke until he was almost shouting. “You cannot hide from Him!”
Tigh promised to set off another bomb, one that would kill me, kill him, and blow a big hole in the side of the Walton, unless the captain vented the ship's water into space. If the No Escapers on the other ships were following a similar plan, and it worked, the colony mission would be set back by years, if not stopped completely.
“You have twelve hours,” Tigh said, and stopped recording.
I was crying by then, and I could barely see as Tigh turned to Tom. I just wanted to go home.
“You need to go,” Tigh told his son. “Stay somewhere public. I'll send the message out in thirty minutes.”
“But I want to stay with you!” Tom said.
Tigh gripped his son's shoulders. “If this doesn't work, we'll need you in reserve.” He smiled. “Besides, I’ll need you to explain this to your mother later. You tell her I'm sorry, and that I'm praying for her to find her way back to me.”
“To us.”
Tigh nodded. “To us.” He smiled and patted his son’s shoulder.
Tom looked at me. “I'm sorry.”
“I thought you liked me.” I cringed at how pathetic I sounded.
Tom looked like he was about to cry. “I do. But God – my Dad – needs me to do this.”
“Bullshit!” I threw myself from side to side, trying to get loose. “I hate you. You people are crazy!”
Tom ducked his head like my words were actually hitting him, and hurried out of the door. I saw Tigh glance at his fone. He sat on the couch and clicked around on the Vid control until he found a movie. “Be quiet and watch this, or I'll gag you.”
We watched together for a few minutes.
“Let me go,” I said. “Please. I'll hide so they think you still have me.”
Tigh shook his head. “No you won't. Watch the movie.”
It was a comedy. Some kind of mistaken-identity thing. It didn’t hold my interest.
“Where's the bomb?”
“You don't need to worry about that,” Tigh said. He pointed at the Vid.
He checked the time a few more times and finally pushed a button on his fone.
We watched awhile more.
“I need to use the bathroom,” I said.
He shook his head.
“I really have to go. Please!”
He shook his head again but got up and walked over to the chair. “No screwing around. You have three minutes.”
I nodded.
Tigh untied me and walked me to the bathroom. “Leave the door open.”
I scowled at him and crossed my arms.
“Fine, close it. But don't lock it.”
I nodded and went in. The door slid shut behind me and I immediately slapped the big red button marked “Emergency.” I heard a hiss as the door sealed and the tiny room switched over to its emergency power and air supply. Outside, I knew, a bright red light started flashing over the bathroom door and I heard Tigh start hammering on the lock.
It pays to read the safety cards.
There were emergency rations and a comm unit behind the mirror in the bathroom. I called Mom and Dad to tell them I was alright. “Tom is in on it, too. He's staying out of the way until it's all over.”
“Your father is calling the captain now,” Mom said. “Are you sure you’re OK?”
I swallowed. The sound of her voice made me feel like a little kid, and I suddenly wanted a hug more than anything in the world. I almost told her that I wasn’t OK, that I needed her and Dad to come get me. “Is Dylan there?” I thought my voice sounded shaky.
He’s right here. Dylan, say something to your sister.”
“What should I say?” Dylan said.
“Tell Hayley you love her,” Mom said.
“I love you.” Dylan paused. “Does it smell bad in there?”
I laughed, wiping my eyes with my sleeve. “Not as bad as you, punk.”
I was in the bathroom for about an hour. Tigh tried the pounding thing a few more times, but it didn’t do him any good. I couldn’t hear much more than that through the insulated walls. Mom, Dad, and Dylan stayed on the fone with me the whole time. They only hung up after one of the crew tapped in the code to let me out. The chair with the ropes was still there, but Tigh was nowhere in sight. I took a deep breath. The air tasted kind of tangy.
“Where's Tigh?”
The crewman grunted. “In the brig. We gassed him.”
I nodded. “You get Tom, too?”
He nodded.
“Can I leave?”
The crewman palmed the door open for me. “After you.”
He walked me back to our quarters. Dylan tackled me as soon as the door slid open. He was crying, and I hugged him hard. Mom and Dad joined the hug and pretty soon we were all crying.
“What's going to happen to them?” I asked after a while.
Dad shrugged. “A trial, probably. There are prison facilities onboard. Maybe they can be rehabilitated. It's a long way to P.C.”
I nodded and started sniffling again.
Mom hugged me. “What's wrong, honey?”
I wiped my nose. “Nothi
ng. I'm just glad to be home.”
R.W.W. Greene is an American writer who got into the fiction game after a decade of print journalism and a career change. He teaches Creative Writing and Journalism at a large public high school and is studying fiction writing at Southern New Hampshire University. If asked for his literary influences Greene would list Kurt Vonnegut, J.G. Ballard, Gary Shteyngart, Hunter S. Thompson, and Robert Heinlein.
Something Wicked #19 (March 2012) Page 2