She glanced at the monitors. As she expected, there was nothing doing out there in Cynthia system. No ... there was something ... teasing her, way on the edge of reception ... she turned up the gain on the monitors.
Soon her watch would be over, and then even Dr. Pryor couldn't refuse her a chance at light work in the fields. Just let her try, Ayelet promised herself.
That flicker of light again! She froze. It wasn't chatter. It was a signal. She turned up reception again, scanning all the usual bands, and most of the less common ones for good measure.
It was a signal. The last time they had suspected Secess’ in-system—and got Thorn out of the deal—all but the eldest, the sickest, and the pregnant, God damnit! were evacuated to the moths’ caves. We don't call them moths, not ever; they are Cynthians, Ayelet corrected herself. None of the children was permitted to call the Cynthians moths; that was a racist term that reduced sapient beings to winged bugs. We have to remember that they were people. How often had the littlests been drilled in that?
Well, even a year after their deaths, the Cynthians’ caves had reeked of musk and formic acid. By the end of the first few days of the evacuation, the stink of stale, terrified humans had been added to the brew. There wasn't much Ayelet wouldn't do to escape ever having to deal with that stink again.
Signal or no signal, she determined, lower lip outthrust and jaw squared in a brief rehearsal of the speech she planned to make, she wasn't leaving home again. This settlement, provincial as her father might find it, was hers; and she was staying put.
For she knew that Lohr wouldn't leave; and she wouldn't leave him.
The signal strengthened, grew focused, all chatter melding into one great beam of query directed straight at them.
That was when Ayelet heard the first recognition code.
Lohr, her father, and her brother could shove it, she told herself. She wasn't that pregnant (though she decided then and there that she'd exploit her pregnancy if she had to) that she couldn't climb up to the caves. But Cynthia colony was her home. She wasn't leaving. No matter what anyone said.
Anyone? What about these invaders?
Recognition codes ... like all the littlests, the civilians, the officers, and the life-sciences people who were “none of the above,” Ayelet had had the rec codes drilled into her.
Query? she asked when the ship's librarian came in with the data on Cynthia.
"Alliance ID codes,” came the librarian's opinion.
"Alliance?” she asked the computer with the voice of a long-dead librarian.
"Yes, Lieutenant."
The panic button, red and taped down to the console, tempted her. She peeled away the tape.
Again the comms exploded into life with lines and lines of codes. That had to be a ship! Theirs or one of the Secess'? She ought to hit the panic button now, give the littlests a chance to evacuate.
But I'm not leaving here, she told herself, unusually truculent. This is home.
Again the signal rose. It was getting closer and closer, as if whatever tracked them scorned standard search patterns. That signal knew they were here. Which might mean that the war was over, and that the Alliance had come—with flourishes—to rescue its lost children. But that was a story not even the littlests would believe. Sure, the assured speed of the signal might mean an Alliance ship.
Or it could be betrayal: that Becker! Ayelet remembered him, all thoughts and plots as he watched the littlests like they were beasts who might suddenly go mad and leap for him. He might have changed sides; or someone who knew him might have been captured and traded the knowledge of Cynthia base for his life. Or her life.
This called for decisions Ayelet knew she couldn't make. She took out her commlink, blew into it, and spoke softly.
"Rafe, can you come to Comm Central?” she asked, sweating and ashamed because her voice shook.
David ben Yehuda shouted out the final order and stepped back. Rafe chuckled. Even from his hilltop vantagepoint, Rafe could see him frown, and he suspected that ben Yehuda was swearing under his breath. Just last year Dave would have shouted with rage if anyone suggested he take it easier. He was grizzled now, and chest pains meant that he had to ease up on heavy labor. The work crews drew breath (Rafe thought he could almost hear them suck in the air), leaned on their ropes, and lunged forward, straining for each step, struggling against each slide backward.
As they pulled the ropes taut, the great tents rose, soaring higher than any of the domes thrown up in the settlement's first seasons. That cluster had grown; in the past ten years, the settlement had almost earned the name of town; and thriving new families needed temporary quarters. The tents would serve until more permanent housing could be contrived.
Sunlight gleamed golden off the white, resistant surfaces of the tents, spiked and vaned like flying creatures yoked, just for now, to the land. They too were part of a harvest, just as surely as the fields that lay beyond, bordered by the brown river and the violent green of the ground scrub, ordered rows of amber and ochre, greens and golds, glistening violet all around their perimeter from the tiny repellors that protected their crops against stobor.
Even at this distance, Rafe could hear them, faint as the white noise generators that eased human ears on the starships he was well content never to see again. Or to think about. He shrugged off the memory, then rubbed his hands through hair thinning now at temples and brow.
A shout drew his attention. At this hour of the day. many Cynthians, were working in the fields; Rafe saw Beneatha, thinner than she had been, her close-cropped curls graying at the temples, but her bony hands still emphatic as she directed her farmers. This year, her fields would yield three separate crops, spaced out over the growing season.
Rafe grimaced. It had taken months of research and a good deal of shouting to convince Beneatha that agroinfection of the crops with ice-minus posed no danger to vital insects and wildlife (including those ubiquitous, seasonal nuisances, the stobor). Their harvests had been leaner then. Now, however, they would never again have to suffer a lean season like the one they had endured the winter they had torched the ergot-infected grain.
All the settlers had gone short of food, the leaders shortest of all. The littlests’ faces had hollowed out until they almost resembled the wild children Rafe had first seen on board the old Jeffrey Amherst. And despite Pauli's quips that it was definitely worthwhile to be pregnant, if only to be sure of full rations, he knew that she had been giving away her food. She had been gaunt by spring. When she miscarried, no one was really surprised. “I have other children to protect,” she had said, and gone off by herself, as she had done more and more in the past years.
After that winter, the spring's planting had been as serious as any battle, Rafe thought as he stared out over the fields. His imagination transformed them to the fields of ten years past: much smaller and browner, new furrows gaping like wounds from which seeds and fertilizer seeped into the river every time it rained—and it usually rained that summer: so much so that once again they feared ergot and the madness it brought.
But the settlement had escaped. As if in celebration, in trust that the bad times were over that winter, at least four of the younger women—and Pauli once again—became pregnant. Rafe had been furious at her and more so at himself, but “she wants to replace her child,” Dr. Pryor told him firmly. “It's her choice; and frankly, I think it will be good for her.” Pryor too had worried about Pauli's long silences.
The colony thrived, what remained of it. Rafe glanced over at the graveyard, too large by far for his liking, yet thank God it was not larger yet. Many of the frailer settlers, those most gravely affected by the convulsions, madness, and tremors from the ergot, had died in the lean seasons before they could reap their next harvest. Some had been older people whose skills the colony could ill afford to lose; but too many of the others had been refugee children. Rafe blinked away angry tears, as he always did when he thought of them. Dammit, they hadn't had very much of a life, h
ad they? He sighed. At least they had had some experience of trust and love to take with them into the dark. ‘Cilla, bless her heart, had proved that. If she hadn't hidden with Rafe and Pauli's son, whom she had snatched to protect, she might still be alive today. Even during the worst shortages, her grave, and then those of others, had always been strewn with flowering plants.
The others? Pauli's voice floated up to him. High overhead, the sky was full of wings: the next generation of Cynthians, wheeling and banking (and escaping collisions by shrill cries and very narrow margins) as they practiced with the gliders. Rafe grinned; his own son Serge was up there, only a bit younger than Lohr had been the first times he had flown.
Lohr folded his wings and dived, straightening out in time to hear Pauli's indignant shouts. He landed, and she limped toward him with remarkable speed.
After she'd broken her leg in a gliding accident (who but Pauli would go aloft in high winds to shepherd a frightened child?), Dr. Pryor had warned her to stay off it until it healed. But that was the autumn the physician's pneumonia returned. For weeks she had been ill, and had never quite recovered, so Pauli promptly forgot her warnings. She had no time to lie, or sit idle, nor patience to delegate others to be hands and feet for her. At least, not for long.
She was up and prowling her settlement as soon as she could hobble; and now, she never would lose that limp.
Golden light glinted off the metal wings, and pooled at the horizon, where the sun was lowering. Fields and sky echoed with voices and songs. These Cynthians were alive, and they were making their world richer for their presence. Please God, let this serve as our atonement, Rafe prayed, as he prayed every day for years. Not even Pauli knew he had started praying.
Certainly the past ten years seemed to prove that Cynthia had finally decreed that the past was past; and that the stubborn, guilty humans were the planet's children now. That, at least, was what some of the gentlest of the settlers thought—and what Rafe longed to believe.
At least, though, the children no longer looked down at the ground, following their elders’ example. Many flew now, true to the heritage Pauli insisted that they remember. Farmers they were: that much was true. But Pauli forced them to remember an older truth: theirs had been a tradition of flight, of faring from star to star, whether any of them would ever see a starship again.
But this was a good life now, wasn't it? he pleaded at his memories. They had a fine life, now, purged of war, of vanities, or hunger, and full of productive work which enabled a man to see his own rewards. Even the feral children who had tried to run away had flourished into a unique harvest: Lohr was a capable aide to Pauli now, and an assistant to Thorn Halgerd, off by himself once again, testing the ultralight craft he hoped might let them cross the stormy Cynthian seas and explore other continents. He was happier alone, Lohr said, happiest of all while working on his designs for the ultralights. Ben Yehuda said his work was brilliant: unsurprising, if one reminded oneself of Thorn's real father—laureate, renegade, and their friend Alicia's old lover.
The alarm from Rafe's communicator buzzed imperiously, and Rafe started. It had been months since anyone had chosen that particular signal to summon him. He activated the device and heard Ayelet's husky voice. “Rafe, can you come to CommCentral? Bring Father ... and the captain.” Ayelet's voice was higher-pitched than usual, and Rafe didn't think he'd heard her call Dave “Father” or Pauli “captain” for years.
"What's the matter?” he asked, but knowledge began to turn his hands and belly chill. When the cold crept up to his heart, he would be wholly frozen, he suspected. But it was right. It was time. He started down the hill, Ayelet's plaintive voice floating in the clear air of his home.
"We've got ship signals."
Almost the same name as before, even. Gods. Ayelet thumbed communications to record the transmission, and held her breath to listen for the numbers and code series that must surely follow.
If the codes weren't right, they were all dead.
She thinned her lips and hit the panic button, then winced as she heard the sirens hoot across the settlement. That would ground the fliers, pull children from their play, adults from their duties or their rest, and send them seething into their evacuation groups by the numbers. The only people who would be spared the climb would be those too sick to walk. And me, Ayelet thought. And me.
The numbers flickered, then marched across her screens. So the war was really over? She'd believe it when Rafe and Pauli and her father confirmed it. And meanwhile, she'd give the settlement the time it needed to flee, just in case this was a trick.
Rubbing her lower back again, Ayelet settled in to wait. Adult that she was, wife that she was, and mother that she was about to be, nevertheless, she had called for help—fearful of a chancy universe, well taught from her years as a refugee.
The door irised to admit Pauli Yeager, running despite the limp that made her look older than her years. As its panels shrank back into place, an arm forced them apart, and Rafe thrust himself inside, followed by her father, and several others of the adults who really ran the colony. Ayelet shivered with relief, then forced herself (despite a back that ached more and more every day) to sit almost at attention. The last thing anyone needed was for her to cry.
( ... “Don't cry, Ayelet, Ari. The captain knows what he's doing. We can outrun that ship ... no, that salvo missed us, and in a minute or two, we'll Jump ... remember, Jump is strange, but you can make it. Just one more time ... “)
Just one more time, Ayelet thought. One more time to summon her courage and the stolid silence that had lifelong proved to be her best defense. Her father had always told her, “You can make it just this once more,” and he had always been right.
But even he had never faced this.
Still, years of love, security, trust ... yes, and continued survival ... made her smile at him.
"Just one more time,” she shaped the words with dry lips. Even now, that won a twisted smile from her. ("Be my big girl. Don't show the littlests how scared you are.") Damn, the old trick still worked!
The door ground back. Damage there, Ayelet thought, as the panels sagged, then forced themselves open again to admit Lohr, who supported Dr. Pryor.
"I relieve you, Ayelet,” Pauli Yeager spoke formally, as she rarely did these days. Her voice returned Ayelet to the security of her brief childhood after the flight across hostile space to Cynthia. Once they were settled downworld, a word from Captain Yeager meant unquestioned reassurance. A small hand patted her shoulder, and “Good thinking” made her tingle with pride for an instant. The captain slid into the place she vacated and studied the record of transmissions.
"Message incoming,” Ayelet warned, and watched the older woman nod. Her fingers tapped and she whistled under her breath while decrypt puzzled it out. “What are those damned codes?” she muttered. Then her brow cleared and her fingers blurred on the comm as she sent back recognition codes that surely must be ten years obsolete. Rafe leaned over her, one hand on her shoulder.
"I know, Rafe,” the captain said hoarsely. “But look at the codes they sent. They don't just know someone's out here; they think it's us, or someone like us. One of them damned seedcorn dumps. And if they don't know the codes—” she shrugged.
Pauli muttered to herself, then, experimentally tapped out a number sequence. Static erupted, faded then solidified. She nodded to herself.
"Ayelet,” asked Captain Yeager, “would you care to do the honors?"
Terror, buried all these years, bubbled to the surface and threatened to erupt in childish wails as, once again comm lights flashed on her board. Though Pauli Yeager’ words had been phrased as a question, Ayelet knew that they were an order. She drew a deep breath ("Yes, I am Father's brave girl, and yours ... and my own, dammit!" and punched for audio.
"Cynthia, is that you? This is Amherst II..."
Behind them, the door began to slide open again.
"Keep them out!” Rafe had a sudden vision of yelling childr
en, though these children, even now, were likelier by far to go silent and prepare to fight to the death.
Pauli looked up at him, her eyes so bright that Rafe raised work-stained fingers to brush something shiny from her cheek.
"I remember that voice,” she announced in a harsh voice. “It's Becker. Becker. The marshal. Remember him?"
"He left us here,” Rafe nodded. “Lousy survey, barely enough equipment, and a ship's bay full of kids—and he left us here with fine words about our maybe being the last generations of humans to survive with their genes intact. Let me get my hands on him, and his genes may be the only thing of his that I'll leave intact. And that won't be for lack of trying."
"The war's over, he says,” Pauli breathed. “And now he's come—"
"To fetch us?” Pryor whispered, then coughed, and bent double coughing harder. Lohr tore himself from the green-lit comm screens long enough to fetch her a cup of water.
"You're good at making us take our medicine,” Ayelet heard him say. “You should take your own advice.” Pryor muttered something rueful and profane back at him, and, despite the time and place, Ayelet grinned.
"That, or bring others to join us. Secess’ types, maybe. Look at this!” Pauli cried. “The Amherst II's crew. The roster lists their homeworlds: equal parts Alliance, Secess'—and Earth."
She looked up, and for a moment Ayelet saw the young, eager Pauli Yeager who had visited the refugees on board the old Amherst so many years ago: the hot pilot, enraged by the sacrifice of a ship, who took the time to speak kindly with the littlests even when they sensed how angry she was that anyone could abandon people like that. It made them like her, talk about her, dream about being like her, even now. But no one, not even the captain, ever had dreamed of contact with Earth again.
Pauli bent over the computers, punching up a course, running her hands through her hair, close-cropped for practicality though she rarely wore a helmet or any type of headgear now, and muttering to herself in a pilot's trance of calculation as she saw trajectories form and flatten on the screens.
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