It was strange to be called up again for service after all these years. He’d gotten used to being retired, mostly. He and Trip had built quite a pleasant little life here on the estate, with its agricultural produce contributing to the colony’s self-sufficiency. He had plenty of time to sleep in, to read, and to pass his time at leisure.
At Trip’s insistence, he’d cut them off from the colony’s data feed. He loved spending time with his husband, finally seeing each other for more than a couple of days at a time.
He was also bored out of his mind.
So the chance to get involved in something outside the estate again, to be called on to make some kind of difference, was intoxicating. And to be paired with Aaron Hammond’s daughter… well, it seemed that fate had a strange sense of humor.
He peered out of the bedroom into the living room. Andy was sitting on the overstuffed couch Colin had arranged to be shipped up from Earth, looking around at the homey little cottage she found herself in.
Colin threw his carry sack over his shoulder.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Trip stood by the doorway, arms crossed. “Why can’t Aaron deal with this crisis?”
Colin put his hands on Trip’s shoulders. “Experience trumps youth, sometimes.” He gave Trip a quick kiss. “The boy asked for my help, and so I’m going to give it to him.” Though that boy, Aaron, was closing in on forty. “I’ll be home as soon as I can. Besides, when did my starship captain become such a homebody?”
Trip laughed. “Oh, I don’t know… about the time my station commander gave up his own commission?”
Colin snorted. “There is that. I’ll send Shadowfax back from Darlith when I arrive.”
“Yes, Gandalf,” Trip said. “Send him back to our little hobbit hole.” It was an old joke between them.
He gave Trip a hug, sensing the man was at least partially mollified. “I’ll take my loop, and I’ll even turn it on. You can always reach me if you need me.” He’d had his internal loop removed when he retired, but he’d kept a portable one for occasions like this. He turned to the doorway. “You ready, Andy?” The poor kid had been so patient while he puttered around, collecting his things.
“Just waiting for you.”
“Little shit,” Colin whispered to Trip, who grinned. “All right, then. Let’s go.”
ANDY STARED up at the Forever sky and tried to imagine what the skies of Earth were like. She’d been born up here, and this wraparound sky was daunting enough. What would it be like to only see blue when you looked up?
She’d be in constant fear of flying away into the great empty nothing.
Andy rubbed her horse’s neck while she waited for Colin to come back from the stables with his own horse. She’d been just ten years old when the commander had stepped down, but she still remembered seeing him in his dress uniform, a man of both power and decision.
Now in his sixties, he was still handsome, but he seemed… softer. Quieter. What did her father think the dir… Colin could do in the face of the refugee crisis? He’s only one man.
She hadn’t talked with Grandpa Hammond in a while. She wondered what he was up to.
She closed her eyes. She could sense the flow of the world around her—the light breeze that blew from one end of Forever to the other. The ichor—luthiel—that flowed through her underground veins. The thoughts, deep and shallow, that flickered through the world-mind as it regulated the systems that they called a colony.
“Daydreaming?”
Andy laughed, blinking. “A little. Ready to go?”
Colin sat astride a brown mare who looked like she had seen more than her fair share of years. “Shadowfax? Truly?” Andy vaulted up onto her stallion’s back. She was familiar with The Lord of the Rings. As a little girl, she’d spent weeks inside the latest dimensional version, exploring Middle Earth from one end to the other.
“It’s a long story.” He glanced up at the sky. “If we hurry, we might make Darlith before the afternoon showers.”
Andy nodded. She closed her eyes briefly, then blinked and flashed Colin a smile. “We’ve got about three hours.” She spurred her horse on, and Shadowfax followed.
Colin caught up to her, and they rode side by side through the gate to the estate, kicking up a small cloud of dust behind them. “Still have never gotten used to that thing you and your father do.” He glanced over at her.
Andy laughed. “Dad has to touch something. Me, I just close my eyes and voila. He calls it dipping, like dipping your hand into the river. He said it was from some kind of virus that Grandpa had?”
“Close enough.” Colin smiled. “Can you tell me where your father is right now?”
Andy shook her head. “It doesn’t work like that. I can only pick up general information. For more, I have to make a full connection, and it kinda loops me out of the real world.” Into the virtual one. It was an amazing place, where you could imagine almost anything you wanted. There were times in her life when she’d spent days and days in there at a time too, but lately she preferred dealing with real flesh and blood.
They rode on in silence for a bit. The grounds outside the estate were wild, or as wild as land on a manufactured world could be. A small stream wound down along the side of the dirt road toward the Rhyl, the river that would eventually feed an inland lake or sea at the midway point of the still-growing world.
Alifir trees blew gently in the wind, three times a man’s height, their glowing needles giving off a piney scent.
“You were born up here, right?”
“Yup. On Transfer.” She’d always wanted to see Earth, but her father had put his foot down—not until she was eighteen.
“Do you ever wonder what it was like back on Earth?”
“Yeah, sometimes. I mean, I know it’s important to Dad and Mom and Grandma, but it’s not real to me. Not like this place. It’s like a fairy tale.”
Colin laughed. “Well, I guess it would be. It’s where I grew up, but I haven’t been Earthside for ten years, and it’s not what it used to be. How is Glory adjusting to life in Micavery?”
“Grandma’s good. Though she misses Earth sometimes. I don’t understand why—war, famine, raging floods, and killing droughts. Who would want to live in that?”
“Many people have no choice,” Colin replied, his voice sober. “We have to remember how lucky we are.”
Andy thought about it for a moment. Her father had said nearly the same thing to her when they’d come back from the refugee container. These people fought so hard to get here, and you were born to it. Never forget how fortunate you are. “I guess so,” she said at last. That little boy could just as easily have been her.
“I don’t suppose you’ll ever see the skies of Earth, now.”
EDDY DROPPED into his sleeping bag, exhausted from a long day tinkering with the Moonjumper. It was tedious work. He was going over every part of the little ship, testing it for airtightness, inch by inch. Their lives would soon depend upon it.
Davian was cleaning and overhauling the ship systems. So far they’d been lucky. Although they were filthy with years of accumulated dirt and grit, they seemed to be in serviceable shape.
Once he was done, they’d install the reconditioned x-drive he’d purchased on the black market. It would either work or they’d be blown to microscopic bits along with half the mountain. In which case it won’t really matter.
Eddy lay back in the sleep sack and closed his eyes, listening for the hiss of drones outside. They’d seen two more since the first one had appeared. One had been of Sino-African design, while the other had been unmarked. Both had passed them by.
The night was calm, deceptively so. He could hear the crickets’ song, muted by the fuzz field, but otherwise there was nothing but the night breeze.
He drifted off into memories, and then dreams.
Eddy Tremaine looked around the grim space one last time, shouldering his duffel bag, filled with everything he owned, ready to leave this dingy hellhole behind.
Things were heating up in the Hong Kong battle zone, and the army was offering great conscription packages for anyone who agreed to enlist now rather than waiting for their draft number to come up.
This concrete one-room flat had been all he could afford on his salary as a security guard—a square gray box that was functional above all else.
He supposed he was lucky to have found a place to resettle here in Sugarloaf Mountain when Orlando had been pummeled by Hurricane Cisco. His parents had grown up in southern Florida, a place that only existed now in peoples’ memories or under forty feet of water.
He closed the door behind him and looked out across the sunrise over Lake Apopka, which had become more of an inland sea with the rise in ocean levels and the heavy rains that now hit Florida with increasing regularity.
It was a clear day, the skies washed clean by last night’s storm. A good omen.
Today was the day things would start to change for him. He’d brokered a hell of a deal for his conscription—full ride in Army College, resettlement money after he got out, and best of all, a full transition once it was done, paid for by the NAU. No more binding. No more T. No more Evelyne.
Just Eddy.
It was going to be a good day.
DAVIAN WAITED until he was sure Eddy was in a deep sleep, snoring away.
He lay still in his own sleeping bag, staring up at the cavern ceiling, wondering how many other generations of humanity had taken refuge in this same cave.
Had it been home to a pack of Neanderthals? Or were they just in Europe?
Maybe some nineteenth-century family had taken shelter here during a rainstorm before traveling westward toward California.
Or perhaps a Boy Scout troop might have stopped here on a camping trip to learn wilderness survival.
There was so much history in the world, and mankind was determined to blow it all to bits.
He’d been watching Eddy carefully while doing his own work. The man was super detail oriented. He’d worked over half the little Moonjumper that afternoon, getting her in shipshape for the flight. If left in his hands, they’d be certain to reach one of the three seed ships without a catastrophic decompression. Without even springing a leak, most likely.
It just wouldn’t do.
He needed Eddy to get him up there. Davian had no experience navigating these things, and Eddy had done at least three moon runs in a jumper like this over his career. But once they were close, he’d need to get rid of the man. He had big plans, and he didn’t want anyone on Forever to know his history and secrets.
Davian waited a little bit longer to be certain Eddy was out cold. Then, quietly, he eased himself out of the sleeping bag. Eddy was a heavy sleeper, but it didn’t pay to take any chances.
After retrieving a tube of readygel and a damper drill from his kit, he climbed onto the truck bed and into the jumper. He found the spot he was looking for, hidden behind the control panel where the hull was the thinnest. He’d seen Eddy go over that part of the ship already.
He used the small drill to quietly make a pinprick hole in the hull, just big enough to let the air whistle out in space. If he’d judged it right, they would be in no danger of decompression.
Then he filled it with readygel. The gel would withstand the extreme cold of the void for maybe twenty-four hours; then it would lose its cohesion, and the trap would be sprung.
He would put a matching hole or three in Eddy’s suit after the man tested it.
Davian withdrew from the Moonjumper, peering over the edge of the truck bed to be sure Eddy was still sleeping. Then he wiped up the small pile of debris left from the drill on the floor of the truck and put everything away where it belonged.
He settled back into his sleeping bag, staring coldly at Eddy’s slumbering form. I loved you once.
Space was a dangerous place. He’d heard there’d already been many refugee casualties.
What was one more?
Chapter Three: Darlith
COLIN WHISTLED. “It’s getting big.”
It had been at least six months since he’d been to the new, bustling town of Darlith, where the latest wave of settlers were quickly building a fully functioning society.
Now it was laid out ahead of him, a little around the curve of the world, giving him almost a bird’s-eye view.
The city was being put together from materials extruded by the world-mind—lightweight solid stone blocks with the density of volcanic stone, hauled up from the South Pole. They came in a variety of colors. The result was a kaleidoscope of a city, laid out on a grid on the “west” side of the Rhyl, just after the waters tumbled out of the Anatov Mountains, renamed after the death of the scientist there.
It wasn’t the wild colors that drew his attention. Instead it was the rapid growth in the township since he had last been there.
From York Street along the riverside, five lanes radiated like spokes running up the hillsides along the river. There were at least a hundred buildings along these streets, and many more under construction.
They were still a good hour or two away from the edge of town, so Colin suggested they stop for lunch. They had just crossed over the Rhyl, so they found a spot by the riverside beneath the branches of some tall alifir trees, rustling in the slight breeze. Colin tied the horses up.
The afternoon storm was brewing in the sky, the dark patch of moisture extending slowly toward them from the north.
“Going to be a soaker today, by the looks of it.” Colin eyed the approaching clouds.
“How can you tell?” She looked up at the sky, her eyes narrowed as she tried to see the difference.
Colin laughed. He liked this young Hammond. “Years of experience. When you live out here like I do, you start to pick up the nuances of the weather, and the weather here is a hell of a lot simpler than weather back on Earth.” He opened his carry sack and pulled out some of the dried fruit he brought with him. He handed a bag of it to Andy.
“I mean, how can you tell that this one will be heavy?” She took the offered bag of fruit and pulled out a sealed package from her own carry sack.
They settled in with their backs against a couple of the trees to watch the progress of the storm clouds twirling in the distance.
Colin frowned. He stared up at the approaching clouds for a moment before speaking. “It’s a couple of things,” he said at last. “Do you see the color of the clouds? How they have a dark purple tinge in the middle?”
Andy nodded.
“They’re thicker than they were yesterday too. Taking up more space. It’s hard to explain.”
“Yeah, I think I see that.”
Colin waited for a minute, timing his reply. “Plus, it’s Sunday. It always rains heavily on Sunday.”
Andy looked at him for a moment, then exploded in laughter.
“You spend too much time up on the space station or you’d know that too.” Colin laughed a little himself.
Andy nodded. “Dad says I can come down here full-time next year. I can’t wait. I’m so sick and tired of being cooped up in that metal monster.” She grinned. “That’s why I jumped at the chance to come find you.”
Colin chewed on his dried fruit. He hardly ever ate meat anymore; it was a rarity up here. The fruits, nuts, and vegetables had been engineered with all the nutrients his body needed. “It’s a shame you’ve never been to Earth. It was a beautiful world once. Parts of it still are.” He remembered the week he and Trip had spent in Paris, still romantic despite two centuries of modern history.
“It’s hard for me to imagine it. It seems… too big.”
“There are times I wish I was back there. You’re right—it is big. If you wanted to, you could wander the world your entire life and never see it all.”
Andy whistled. “I can’t imagine that.”
The wind was starting to pick up, and they finished their meal and put everything away. “Let’s hang out here until the storm passes.” Colin pulled his rain tent out of his carry sack
. He found a flat spot along the river’s edge to anchor it and pressed a button. It inflated silently, creating a transparent dome.
Andy whistled again, this time appreciatively. “I’ve never used one of these.” She looked at the transparent tent.
“It keeps all the rain out, but you can still watch the storm as it goes by.” He unsealed the door and beckoned for Andy to climb in. Soon they were both inside and settled, and Colin resealed it.
Above them, the sky was growing dark, sizzling with electricity akin to the arrival of the morning, but this time it was rain, not light, that was coming.
In moments the sky was full of clouds, and then the storm arrived. A light pattering of rain soon gave way to larger hard drops, drenching everything in sight and pounding the surface of the tent. The view around them dropped to a mile, then half a mile, then down to almost nothing as the raindrops pummeled its plasform.
“How do they have the refugees housed?” Colin asked. There wasn’t enough shelter built for that many people.
“They’re using plas sheets to make a big tent city for them, but it’s extremely temporary.”
These things could get out of control fast. “We’ll see what we can do about that when we get there.”
THE STORM passed them by in half an hour, and the rest of the journey up to Darlith was uneventful.
They rode through the countryside. Andy asked about Colin’s life on Earth before he’d become a captain, and they chatted awhile about life in California. Before long they were approaching the edge of Darlith.
Andy had been through the city a couple of times before, so she knew her way around. The maglev train line ended at a station on the far side of the growing city, so they dismounted and walked their horses through the streets of town.
As the head of the project, Colin had tried to keep technology at a fairly low level inside Forever, both because of the potential pollution, and because technological devices would be hard to maintain over time as the ship made its way between Earth and Forever’s final destination.
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