by Ivan Cat
The news was not to her liking. The sudden disappearance of Karr would seriously affect tomorrow night's vote in the Chamber of the Body. Now that she was back, her father was trying to ram through his proposal for expanding the Enclave perimeter and securing new supplies of Feral kits for use in Sacrament. He was using Karr to help lock down support; who would vote against a Prime Consul who controlled access to a Pilot? However her father's plan had a flaw in it, a flaw Jenette intended to exploit, and she was using every surreptitious Khafra connection she had to influence the coming vote, but she needed Tesla to keep flaunting Karr around the Enclave. Otherwise Jenette's maneuvering would fail and Tesla would steamroll over all opposition once and for all.
Karr must not go to Coffin Island.
A message would have to be sent to Karr, but Jenette didn't think Byussart could pull it off by himself. Byussart was full of good intentions, but he did not know Karr and Karr did not know him. Arrou was the logical choice to send, but he was out in the Enclave at that moment, relaying critical information to Jenette's supporters through their domestics. Besides, Arrou—believing Karr responsible for abandoning him on FI-716—was not on speaking terms with him. Jenette tried to set Arrou straight on the matter, but other issues had gotten in the way. Harsh words were exchanged.
"Forget it," Jenette had ordered.
"No," Arrou said, indignant. "Worried about Jenette. Soon Jenette sick."
"No Sacrament. Just put it out of your peanut brain."
"Jenette die."
"Arrou die," she had returned, angrily mimicking his pidgin speech. "You can't make a clear decision on this. You think you want to commit suicide for me, but it's not true. You don't have to. I force-bonded you. Your genetic instincts are overriding rational thought."
Arrou did not back down. "Have to, want to: not matter. Better Jenette live. Arrou not want live without Jenette. What happen if Jenette die? Tesla makes Arrou bond with other human Arrou not care about! Arrou then forced to Sacrament anyway!"
Jenette could not respond. It was one of the longer, hottest sentences Arrou had ever said to her. And he was right. He had then stalked off to relay her messages to the domestic underground. She did not expect him back soon.
Jenette would have to speak to Karr herself.
Jenette cursed under her breath, locking fingers in a chain link cage and shaking. Feral kits raised frightened eyes. She stopped, embarrassed by her selfish display. "Sssssh," she soothed. "I'm sorry. Go back to sleep." Slowly, the kits curled back up.
Byussart thought hard. "Bronte knows more."
"Why? Was she there?"
"No. Outside with Byussart, waiting for Bigelow. But maybe she hears more."
"Where is she?"
"Not here. Hiding."
Jenette was not surprised. Bigelow's domestic, Bronte, was shy, verging on cowardly—as she had been the night of the secret meeting in the glade.
"Does my father know about this?" Jenette asked.
"Not yet. Domestics never tell Toby."
"Good." Jenette scratched Byussart behind his ear pits. "You did a good job."
Byussart, who didn't get much attention from his human, glowed happily. "Thought Jenette want know."
"You were right."
Jenette grabbed a flashlight, doused the lights in the nursery, and hurried out the door.
Jenette crept across the island, moving from cover to cover with the help of Byussart and a few other friendly domestics. They scouted around corners and up streets to make sure the coast was clear, blending into night-darkened plant life whenever humans were present. Jenette kept to hiding spots at those times, waiting for the all clear signal. At one point, Bragg and a squad of VF police drove by in a crawler. She held her breath and her position, but the unpleasant gelding did not see her.
Pop (red), pop (white), pop (red), Byussart flashed when it was safe to move.
Jenette and the domestics skirted around the most heavily populated areas of the island and through the pathetically few buildings of the Enclave's manufacturing sector. Tiny glowstrips glimmered inside silent, empty warehouses. She followed the domestics through fields of New Ascension polyp-grains, the stalks rippling and rolling with the motion of the island. Jenette skulked on past the incinerator, toward the sinkhole at the center of the Enclave, which was not a perfect doughnut-hole lake like those found in wild ring-islands. Thanks to concerted human and domestic efforts to keep the space healthy and usable, it more closely resembled a series of swamps and pools. Jenette found the heavy lifter floating in one. Karr was not present, but the deck was heaped high with bulging sacks and nets.
"Keep watch," Jenette whispered.
Byussart and the other domestics slunk away to take up guard positions. Jenette crept across a short gangplank onto the outworld vessel. A quick examination of the sacks revealed a collection of pilfered food and mechanical items. There was even a self-contained water desalination unit. Karr had enough supplies to last a month.
Khafra light staccatoed across a field. <
Jenette heard Karr before she saw him, pulling huge loops of industrial strapping that clattered behind him. How he had made it back without discovery, she didn't know. She stood up from behind a heap of meat-fruit melons, ready for confrontation.
"Pilot Karr."
Karr just about jumped out of his skin, but his face lit up when he saw who it was. "Consul, am I ever glad to see you."
"You are?" Jenette said.
"Yes," said Karr. "You're just about the only friendly face around here."
Jenette felt suddenly disarmed. For a moment all she could think of was his grimly handsome face, its dour mouth almost bent into a smile, its gray eyes staring into hers for a too-long heartbeat. She realized, to her surprise, that she was glad to see him, too. But there was important business at hand. Her euphoria soon fizzled.
"What are you doing?" she demanded as he pulled the strapping across the gangplank and piled it on deck.
"Bugging out," Karr replied.
"To Coffin Island?"
"Yes. Why ask if you knew?"
"You can't go."
"Why not?" Karr asked. "I fixed the last of the leaks in the hull, and the overheating thruster, too."
"Let me rephrase that: I can't let you go."
Karr's grin slipped away. "You don't have the authority to stop me. No one on this planet has the authority to stop me. Check your Colony Charter if you don't believe it."
Jenette was sure that Karr had the rules on his side, but she did not care. "Why would you possibly want to go to Coffin Island?"
Karr counted off on his fingers. "One, to find a stockpile of abandoned C-55 core-boring warheads. Two, to retrieve said warheads. Three, to bring them back for Dr. Bigelow to fashion into a large explosive device."
"A big bomb."
"Exactly." Karr explained his plan to snuff out the fire over his fugueship. "It will require a yield of forty to fifty kilotons. It's a standard technique to extinguish fossil-fuel fires on other planets."
"Setting off a fifty kiloton explosion is standard technique?"
"Well, on a much smaller scale, but the principal is the same."
Jenette shook her head. "This is nuts."
"It is perfectly sane," Karr said, launching into a detailed explanation of his plan. "Dr. Bigelow reminded me that the explosive blast from a C-55 is extremely direction specific. I should have remembered myself." Pilots were required to be familiar with all the types and numbers of munitions seeded with a colony. "They are used to bore thermal mines deep into colony planet cores. Spaced properly across the surface, they are a great way to raise a planet's temperature from sub-habitable ranges. Of course, New Ascension is tropical already and does not have that problem, so they were never used." Jenette glared as Karr rambled. He cleared his throat uncomfortably and spoke faster. "In any case, Dr. Bigelow assures me that he can turn the unused stockpile into a single, large shaped-charge, which will funnel most of the bla
st up and away from Long Reach. Also, force follows the path of least resistance, so it will naturally tend to explode up through the air as opposed to down into the water. If the detonation was submerged, that would be a different story. That would probably kill half the aquatic life on the planet," Karr laughed nervously at his hyperbole. "But we'll detonate in the air. Long Reach being a couple hundred feet under the surface, trauma from the blast should be minimal."
Jenette threw her hands up, exasperated. "How did you get out of your quarters without being seen? Where did you get all this stuff?"
"I climbed through a back window while the guards were sniffing my dirty clothes," Karr sneered, "and as for this equipment, your father dragged me from one end of this island to the other. He even gave me a map." Karr unfolded a sheet of stimpaper from his pocket. "I noted where things were."
"And then you stole them?"
"Again, I refer you to your Colony Charter," Karr said defensively. "This colony is required to render assistance to any and all fugueships and their Pilots—on demand. I repeatedly asked your father for assistance, and he was not forthcoming."
"Forget my father! Think about how crazy this is, going into Feral territory, trying to find Coffin Island, alone!"
"I like working alone. I'm trained to work alone. Me, myself, and I are very productive that way. No one gets in our way. Besides, crowds give me the creeps." Karr couldn't repress a shudder at that thought.
Jenette put a consoling hand on his shoulder. "Please, be reasonable," she said.
Karr stiffened and stepped back. "Reasonable? Don't you know I'm a Pilot? Pilots aren't allowed to be reasonable! My Duty is to my ship—and that's it! Long Reach might live a few weeks under the water or just a few days and I can't let a bunch of sweat-licking zombie colonists get in the way. However unreasonable you think it is, I have to take matters into my own hands!"
Hurt by the zombie remark, Jenette lashed out. "This is beyond unreasonable. It's outright foolishness!"
"If it is foolishness, then you should not talk."
"What do you mean?" Jenette sputtered.
Karr's eyes narrowed. "That crawler you were in when we met—you stole that, didn't you? You had no permission to be outside this colony and your father was searching to bring you back when he found us, wasn't he?"
"Maybe ... maybe that's right," Jenette admitted reluctantly. "Maybe if we hadn't met up on FI-716 at the right moment I'd be in some Feral's gizzard right now, but that's exactly why you shouldn't go. It's dangerous out there."
"Duty takes precedence over personal safety," Karr said rigidly. "Pilot's Regs: chapter one, section one, top of the page in bold type."
They stood silent for a while, the small space between them feeling like a million light-years to Jenette. Eventually, Karr broke the standoff.
"Why are you trying to talk me out of this?" he asked. "It's obvious there's no love lost between you and your father. You hate his guts."
"I love my father," Jenette said weakly.
Karr dug around in his loot. "Here, you forgot this." He held up the starlure. "Come with me. I'll make an exception to my working alone rule. You can even bring Arrou. He's useful. We can make a swing by a Feral island after we pick up the C-55s."
"It's not as simple as that."
Karr handed Jenette the starlure. "It is to me."
Jenette stared down at the crystal globe, entranced by what it represented: peace, freedom, life. She wanted to tell Karr that she really wanted to go with him, that he didn't know how much she would love to get back on the heavy lifter and fly fast and far away from the Enclave, forgetting about Scourge and Sacrament, everything. But what she said was, "I can't. There's a very important vote in the Chamber of the Body tomorrow night and a lot of people are counting on me to be there, people that I care about. I know you've been having a hard time here. I know we look like a bunch of mutants to you, licking your sweat and smelling your laundry, but this is my world. I was born here and I have to live here—you do too, by the way. I want it to be better, for humans and Khafra, not the way it is now. That means being here tomorrow night."
Jenette pleaded with Karr. "Give me twenty-four hours, just twenty-four hours. It's really important that you play the heroic figurehead for just one more day. After tomorrow night, things will be different. You'll be able to mount a proper expedition with full Enclave support, take any equipment you want—not just stolen junk—and you'll be able to pick any personnel you want to go along."
"I don't want any personnel to go along," Karr objected.
"Not even Dr. Bigelow?" Jenette challenged. "The man you want to build your big bomb? He couldn't possibly be of any use recovering your warheads, could he? Hmmm? Or hadn't you thought of that?"
"Yes, but I assumed he is too valuable to your colony to be permitted to go on a dangerous mission."
"Normally," Jenette allowed, "but not after tomorrow night. After tomorrow night, I'll be able to put together a party of people with the skills and expertise that can really save Long Reach— because that's what it's going to take, not a wild gamble like this. Right?"
Karr didn't say anything and Jenette couldn't read his shadowed expression.
"Right?"
"I guess," Karr finally said.
Jenette smiled in the dark. "Thank you, I'll... make it up—"
Karr held up his hands, all business. "Twenty-four hours. Not a second longer."
Jenette's heart sank at his cold tone, but there was little else she could do. She looked around the lifter and then at a thicket of dumbbell-shaped bushes. "Better hide this stuff over there." Karr nodded. Jenette continued. "Byussart and his friends will help. I can't be here. I'm under strict orders to avoid any contact with you." If her father found out, Jenette would be slapped under immediate house arrest, and therefore cut off from her underground communication network. And she couldn't let that happen, or the vote in the Chamber the next night would be a horrible disaster.
XXIII
4610 A.D.
New Ascension colony on Elysium island.
Eighteen months after seeding.
8:31 P.M.
Olin Tesla stands in the shower with his clothes on. He holds his wife Helena in his arms, helping her to stand, letting the water pour down on the two of them, hoping that the enveloping warmth will somehow reinvigorate her, and willing her with every fiber of his being to hang on just a little longer. She was always a slim woman, but where before she felt firm and alive in his arms, now she is gaunt. How she has lasted this long, Olin does not know.
She has refused the Sacrament.
He can feel her slipping away, heartbeat by heartbeat. He clutches her tighter.
"I should never have let you talk to those Ferals," he chokes, trying to be strong for her and not break down. "I should have made you take Sacrament."
Ever so faintly, Helena smiles. He has never been able to make her do anything she did not want to do.
"I love you, Olin."
"I love you, too, Helena."
She leans her head against his chest. He kisses her forehead. "No one is going to refuse Sacrament, ever again," he weeps. "Never again."
"You must always do what you think is right," she says, without anger or sarcasm, only the honesty and conviction Olin has always respected her for.
And then she is slack weight.
Olin's legs go weak. He slumps down the tiled wall into a corner, still holding her, the water pouring down as he weeps.
In another room, baby Jenette cries.
Arrou huddled on the roof of the great hall, peeking through a skylight down info the forbidden Chamber of the Body and carefully keeping his glowbuds as dark as he could in the starless night. Wind blew, roaring through Enclave trees as the vote proceeded around the ring of desks below. Arrou could not hear through the transparent ceramite, even with his acute Khafra senses. He wished Patton had come onto the roof with him; Patton had very good hearing and could probably listen to the humans even thr
ough the skylight. But Patton would not break the rules and go onto the roof without direct orders from Halifax. So Arrou puzzled it out on his own. Gradually, he figured out how the humans were voting from other signs they gave. Ayes were strong faced, upright, united like forfaraws. Nays were defiant, like cornered pleens, shifting in their seats. Arrou counted, ignoring the Subconsul vote, which did not matter except in case of a tie.
So much work he and Jenette had done! Eating little and sleeping less, Arrou had passed the secret messages until his glowbuds ached. But would the humans listen to the message their domestics relayed? Hearing was the humans' most important means of communication, but they were not good listeners. So far, the vote was eighteen ayes and four nays. Not good.
They needed fourteen nays.
Arrou scratched. A good-boy collar was locked around his neck. Good-boy in the sense that if he wasn't one, Arrou would feel the prod built into the fiberplast ring. Tesla had put it on him because there was a transponder inside. It was an effective leash. For Jenette, not Arrou. If Arrou's transponder left the Enclave, Tesla knew Jenette had escaped again (and Arrou would get a sudden, enduring jolt of blindness).
The vote went from the most senior Consul, Tesla, down through the ranks. Nineteen ayes, seven nays. Better. It did not sound better, but for important votes the humans had a funny way of counting. Tesla needed two out of every three Consuls to win. That meant that if fourteen out of the forty voted nay, he lost, and Jenette's friends won. And the newer Consuls coming up were on Jenette's side.
Nay, nay, nay, nay.
Very good!
But then: aye, aye, aye—nay—aye, aye, aye, aye!
"Urrkurrkurrk!" Arrou exclaimed, slapping paws over his head to blot out instinctual flashes of consternation and almost sliding down the slope off the roof. His claws scraped on metal. After regaining his grip, he held still, hoping no one had seen or heard.
The proceeding was heating up. Few heard, much less cared about a faint scraping on the roof when the vote was so close. Twelve nays. Twenty-six ayes. One vote was left, then Jenette's. The fate of the Enclave hung on those two votes. Bigelow feigned indifference, but compulsively spun the rings on his fingers. Burke Hedren was firm, nodding with all his might, as if he could force the outcome by sheer force of wanting. Yll sat perfectly still; having already voted against the Prime Consul he felt distinctly panicky.