Caretaker

by Josi Russell

  Kaia answered as if he’d spoken the question. “Of course we should! People need to know exactly what value the government places upon their lives and their freedom. Something has to be done to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.”

  “You’re right, of course. I guess I’m just not looking forward to reliving it all again.”

  Kaia shuddered. “Me neither.” She paused. “Those testimonials from the Alorans should help, though.”

  “True.” Ethan shifted uncomfortably. It was now or never. “Kaia,” he started.

  She looked at him, her eyes smoldering, and he knew she could tell what was coming.

  He rushed on, “We need to get you back in stasis.”

  “Ethan—” she began, but he talked over her.

  “It’s fine if you want to stay awake a few more days. I’d like that, in fact, but we need to set a date and get you back in there.”

  She put down her burger, sighing. “Ethan, we’ve been through this.”

  “I’m not going into stasis, Kaia.”

  “Ethan, it’s ridiculous for us to consider anything else. You have to go back into stasis. It’s the only logical choice.” She seemed more subdued this time, more solemn.

  He didn’t look at her, just continued eating. “Kaia, there’s no question.” He knew he had to be firm with her if he ever hoped to win this fight.

  She was quiet a long time, long enough to make him glance at her. There were silent tears slipping down her cheeks.

  He softened a little. “Kaia, you have to go,” he begged.

  She continued to weep. “She’ll wake up alone, Ethan. She won’t—” She choked and stopped for a breath. “She won’t know what happened.”

  “I’ll be there to tell her. I’ll be old, but I’ll still be me. Besides, I’m not letting you sacrifice your life to this ship.”

  Kaia reached over and took his hand. “Don’t make her go through losing the man she loves, your dreams together, your child . . .” She trailed off. “I couldn’t stand knowing that you’d caused her that pain just for me.”

  He shifted his eyes from hers. “Kaia, it’s—it’s not just that. It’s more selfish than that.” He paused, searching for words. “I’ve got to watch over this ship. After the last few days, after what I’ve seen, after what I’ve learned about evil, I—I can’t trust anyone else to do it.”

  Kaia pulled her hand away, sensing his resolution. “Not even me?”

  He shook his head slightly and reached for her mind with his. The wall she’d raised still stood between them, though, and he retreated, standing to take the rest of his lunch to the recycler. A sense of finality settled over the hold, and a few more tears rolled down Kaia’s cheeks.

  Chapter 37

  The next few days slipped away from them. Ethan and Kaia watched old Earth movies, ate every good thing they could remember, and ran through the halls of the ship like children. Ethan couldn’t bear to think of the long years ahead, the silence that would fill the ship after she was asleep, the pain of losing her to stasis.

  Kaia seemed to avoid thoughts of their parting. He only got glimpses of her shielded mind in moments of distraction or intensity when their thoughts still intertwined. Then he saw briefly why—she knew that her own sorrow over losing him would only make his pain worse.

  Each day he slipped away and visited Aria, keeping his promise to her and keeping his resolve strong. He wanted to protect her, wanted to know that she’d be alright, and he felt a resurgence of his sense of responsibility every time he stood in the pink light of her chamber and watched her sleep.

  He and Kaia had agreed on one last week together. On the eighth day, she was to enter stasis. Every day it was becoming harder to keep his distance, to avoid pulling her into his arms. Every day he felt his resolve to send her back into stasis wavering. Worse, every day his longing to be with Aria again grew. Every time he stood in front of her chamber, he longed to step into his own stasis chamber and sleep until all that had happened was decades behind him. Sending Kaia back into stasis would settle all of it.

  The day finally came.

  Ethan opened his eyes with feelings of dread and relief. He heard Kaia breathing softly on the couch. He’d taken to sleeping on the crooked massage table again, the short leg propped up with a book, so that they didn’t have to miss one moment of their last few days together. He sat, thinking, on the edge of the table.

  She stirred and then her dark hair popped up over the back of the couch. She turned to look at him and he saw that her eyes were red.

  “I guess we’d better head down to the hold,” he said as gently as he could. He tried to sense how she was feeling about it, but she kept her thoughts carefully veiled from him.

  She nodded, and they made their way through the ship for the last time together.

  The stasis chamber stood ready, its door closed, awaiting their final goodbye. They stood in front of it awkwardly, trying not to look at each other.

  “I can’t hear all your thoughts,” he said softly to break the silence.

  “I just—I just don’t want you to feel how hard this is for me. I—” Suddenly she spun, throwing herself into his arms, sobbing. “I’m just going to miss you so much, Ethan.”

  He stroked her hair, and the ache of those first five years on the ship, when all he heard was its mechanical sounds and the voice of the computer, rushed back to him. He held her tightly, pushing away his dread at the years of emptiness ahead, feeling his own face wet with tears.

  She began to draw back from him, a steely resolve in her eyes. “I have to go now, or I won’t be able to do it.” She reached up, brushing the tears from his face, and kissed him gently on the cheek.

  “I will always love you, Ethan.” She let go of his hand and stepped to the door of the chamber.

  He watched her struggle with the handle, trying to pull hard enough to break the inner seal. She was still weeping, and he saw that she couldn’t open it alone. Stepping close behind her, he reached around her and put his hands over hers. Together, they pulled the door open. He heard the hiss of the seal breaking and felt the whoosh of cool air from inside. They stood for a moment in front of the open door, his cheek next to hers, his arms still around her. He felt her relax against him, and he leaned into the embrace.

  In an instant, Kaia tensed, wrapping her hands around his right arm. She pulled, catching him off guard and tipping him off balance. He spun around her and then stumbled backwards as he tried to catch himself. Ethan fell backwards into the chamber, and with a feeling of dawning horror, he saw Kaia throw her shoulder against the door and slam it closed as he scrambled to his feet. Her deft fingers punched a sequence of keys on the keypad, and the chamber began to fill with sweet-smelling gas.

  He pounded on the glass. “No, Kaia, no!”

  She pressed her palms on the outside of the door. “We’ll be there before you know it, Ethan.”

  His fists slowed as the gas began to take effect. “Kaia, you can’t. Kaia, let me out.” He knew that it was futile. The stasis sequence had been initiated, and even if she did let him out, her chance at stasis was gone.

  He pressed his own palms against the glass. “Kaia, Kaia.” His mind was fogging over, and he slouched back against the soft foam backing in the chamber. His hands slipped down the glass and came to rest at his side. He wanted to chide her for such a foolhardy move, he wanted to thank her for it, but her image grew fuzzy in his mind and his eyelids dropped closed as he felt the wax coating his skin and heard the chamber filling with liquid.

  Chapter 38

  Ethan’s breath came deep and slow. His foggy mind fought the heaviness of sleep. He tried to roll over and then realized that he was standing, leaning against the soft back of the chamber. He opened his eyes, blinking away the fluid that blurred his vision. Frantically, he searched the world beyond the curved glass door for any sight of Kaia. But no, she wouldn’t be there. She would be overseeing the final details of the awakening.

  His bod
y was still numb from its long sleep, but with some effort he was able to roll his head to the side to look for Aria. Her chamber was empty and open. She would be with the other passengers, preparing for reorientation.

  He felt a cool gust of air as the final awakening compound was vented into the chamber. Feeling crept back into his limbs.

  A man in a green lab coat appeared, studying the vital signs on the panel outside his door. He was not a man from the ship, and it was a shock to see the strange lines of an unfamiliar human face.

  The man finally looked up at Ethan and punched a code into the panel. The seal on the door hissed, and as it opened, Ethan saw Aria standing behind the man in the green coat.

  She was beaming.

  He scrambled around the technician, ignoring his offer of support, and fell into Aria’s arms. He crushed her to him, feeling her breathing against his neck, her soft hair on his cheek, her stomach between them. He laid a hand on the side of it, pulled her face close with his other hand, and kissed the lips he’d longed for.

  “Ethan, Ethan, we’re here!” she said excitedly. “We’re orbiting Minea. It was just like you said. I went to sleep and woke up on the brink of a whole new world! I feel like I’ve hardly been asleep a moment—” She stopped abruptly, her eyes searching his face.

  “Are you alright?” he asked. “Do you feel alright?”

  She smiled. “I’m fine, honey. Just fine.”

  He ran his eyes over her again, drinking in the sight of her, the feel of his arm wrapped around her body.

  The technician also smiled. “Both of you check out. You’re as fit as you were the day you entered stasis.” He glanced at a portable screen he was carrying, and his eyebrows drew together slightly. “You,” he gestured at Ethan, “more so.” He looked at the screen a little longer and then nodded slightly. “Anyway, if you’d please both accompany me to the reorientation room . . .”

  He was already walking away down the long row of empty chambers. Ethan drew Aria closer, and they followed him together.

  Ethan knew what to expect. He’d watched the reorientation video at least ten times and had almost memorized the cheery narration. “Section One: How You Got Here and What to Expect after Stasis. Section Two: Your New Home.” He’d always liked the stunning views of Minea in the video, and he looked forward to a little time to zone out and collect his thoughts while it played.

  They left the ship by the lower hold doors, entering a hallway lined with elevators. The technician led them into the nearest open one. As they dropped from the spaceport down to the Minean receiving center, Ethan wondered about Kaia. Was she still on the ship or awaiting them below?

  The elevator doors slid open to reveal the elaborate receiving center. As they passed the statues of Minea’s founders that lined the hallway from the elevator to the reorientation room, Ethan was overtaken by a short burst of landsickness, for which they had to stop their progression. Aria watched him with a concerned expression, and the technician tapped something on his screen. Ethan was relieved when the sickness passed and he was able to move down the corridor and into a vast hall filled with people. The technician seated them and wished them luck in their new life before disappearing into the sea of green coats at the back of the room.

  “Look at all these people!” Aria’s voice was still high with excitement. “Can you believe there were this many on our ship?”

  Ethan’s eyes scanned the room as she went on. He felt disoriented, surrounded by the people who he’d watched over in their sleep, seeing them moving, laughing, talking. It seemed surreal.

  He realized that Aria was watching him. As he met her puzzled eyes, the lights in the big hall dimmed, and the crowd quieted. Aria turned reluctantly to look at an enormous screen at the front of the room. The first images of the reorientation video began to flash.

  A mellow male voice began to speak. “For centuries men dreamed of finding paths through the stars to new worlds. Today, you are the fulfillment of those dreams.” Stars streaked by on the screen, superimposed with a map of the route from Earth to Minea. The image faded into a video clip of a greater erleckt, a large, heron-like bird, standing knee-deep in a pristine Minean lake. “Today, you will see with your own eyes a new world.” Instrumental music swelled. “Your new world. Minea. Your new home.” Shots of Minea’s woodlands, plants, and animals, interspersed with images of the cottages and people of the Minean colonies, accompanied the narration.

  Ethan tried to focus, tried to avoid thinking about what he should do when the movie ended.

  “Over the next thirty minutes,” said the video. “You will learn what to expect—from yourself and from Minea. You may be feeling afraid, apprehensive, or confused about how little time seems to have passed. As we discuss what you can expect to find in your new home, you will soon find any negative feelings transforming into excitement and confidence. When you leave the reorientation hall today, you will do so armed with all the knowledge you need to understand life on Minea.”

  Ethan glanced again at the people surrounding him. Suddenly, he registered a change in the familiar video. He looked up to see, on the screen in front of him, a familiar face.

  Kaia.

  “Armed with all the knowledge you need,” she repeated.

  Ethan looked around again. No one else seemed to have noticed the abrupt change in the video. Of course, they wouldn’t notice. They’d never seen it before.

  Kaia went on, “Your journey here should have been peaceful. You should have—” Here the original movie came back in, and the male narrator’s voice continued the original narration.

  “—slept peacefully for what seemed only hours while your ship was guided smoothly on its course through the stars to this world. Your Caretaker saw to every detail, though the ship did all the work. As you know, you were brought in a state of suspended animation called stasis across vast empty stretches of space to awaken here on Minea—”

  Kaia appeared again. “Only space wasn’t that empty, and you were not intended to wake up here on Minea.” Suddenly, images began to flash across the screen; images that made Ethan’s skin crawl and forced shocked gasps from the crowd around him.

  Traxoram. The clear cottages on Beta Alora. The auction house. The Others. The images flashed, and all the while Ethan trembled, remembering.

  Video from the secret meetings of the Earth delegation. David McNeal falling.

  Suddenly, it was his own face on the screen. Kaia told the story of Beta Alora, how he’d defeated Traxoram, how he’d saved them all.

  Aria was staring at him, wide-eyed.

  The video transitioned back to images of Minea, but Kaia’s voice continued. “You deserve to know what happened while you slept. You deserve to know what your government did and who really got you safely to this new world. It’s up to you to make sure it never happens again.” An image of Ethan lingered a moment more, and then the screen went blank.

  The hall was quiet, still, waiting. Then, seemingly all at once, the passengers began to speak, to cry, to shout. They clamored for answers, for reasons. They pulled their families to them, the images of the horrible creatures still flashing in their minds.

  Ethan reached for his wife. She clung to him. Her voice was small and hoarse. “Is it true?”

  He nodded.

  Just then, the man next to him grabbed his shoulder. “Hey! You’re the guy from the film! You saved us!”

  Ethan sputtered to answer, but someone in the next row had heard the man and reached out to grab Ethan as well. Within seconds, he was being propelled to the front of the now cheering crowd.

  They laid their hands on his arms, shook his hands, and slapped him on the back. He knew them as he passed each one, knew where they’d come from, knew which of the other smiling faces they belonged with.

  Standing in front of them, he drew a deep breath.

  Out of the corner of his eye he detected a quick movement. As he turned towards it, he felt two men grab him by the arms. They rushed him out of
the hall.

  Looking over his shoulder, Ethan’s last glimpse was of Aria’s pale face in the clamoring crowd.

  Chapter 39

  Ethan was rushed to a glassed-in room. The men departed without a word.

  Within minutes, a man in a dark blue uniform appeared in the hallway. The man entered the room and sat down, gesturing at one of the empty chairs. He looked oddly familiar to Ethan.

  “Sit down, son.”

  The sound of his voice brought recognition. The man was General Reagan, Kaia’s father.

  Ethan sat across from him.

  “You’re a rather remarkable young man,” he began.

  “General, I want to be with my wife.”

  “I’d think so,” he replied. “As soon as we’re done visiting, we’ll get you right back to her. For now, though, don’t worry. She’s resting in the infirmary. She’s fine and just as anxious to see you as you are to see her.”

  “What do you want from me?” Ethan hated the feeling of being a prisoner again.

  “Well, you can imagine that the little video in there has got people pretty riled up.”

  Ethan nodded coldly.

  “It’s nothing compared to what happened when the news hit Earth, though. Kaia sent broadcasts back to them and forward to Minea. She told the whole story, and apparently set off quite a storm.”

  Ethan almost smiled. “I’m not surprised.”

  “Me, neither. That’s just what she should have done.”

  “So the news preceded us, then?”

  The general nodded. “The whole government was tossed out and reorganized. I’ve only been here a little while, but it seems we’re a lot better off. You probably know that I didn’t agree with the way things were being run before.”

  Ethan thought for a moment. “You’ve retained your rank, I see.”

  Reagan nodded. “Advanced in rank, actually. Kaia made a point to illustrate my dissent. I’ve gotten more credit than I deserve. I hate that I was ever a part of it at all.” His eyes held a faraway look.