Project Columbus: Omnibus

by J. C. Rainier

  “Because we can’t afford to rest. Not yet, anyway. We work or we die.”

  Will’s haunting words ended Gabi’s line of questioning. She did not want to know more. The evening’s celebration had given way to a terrible lesson that she was only starting to understand.

  The world is a terrible place.

  Calvin McLaughlin

  8 June, Year of Landing, 16:40

  North Concordia

  Hundreds of faces, both young and old, were illuminated by the faint glow of dozens of lanterns. A single crawler sat to the side of Michael’s cargo ramp, shining a single flood light at the cavernous archway of the rear airlock. The audience waited for the emergence of two men from within the ship, charged with the most important task of the election: certifying the election. Though there were a half dozen men and women from each side of the river counting the ballots that had been returned from as far as the mining camps in the hills beyond, the two attorneys were charged with the final determination of the results.

  The three would-be governors stood atop the deck. Tyler Quinn leaned against the bulkhead with his arms crossed, staring out into the night. Thomas Dayton paced the span from one side of the airlock to the other with his fist raised to his mouth in thought, while Darius Owens sat cross-legged at the edge of the ramp, splitting his attention between his two competitors. For one man, tomorrow would be the dawn of his reign as the most powerful man in the colony.

  For Calvin, this meant finally putting to rest the misguided attempt by some colonists to put him in that position. Alexis had been right, for the most part; after he had failed to make a showing at the debate, his supporters had all but vanished. He still wanted to hear the results of the election with his own ears, just to set his mind at ease.

  All day, as boxes of votes were carried into the ship from both sides of the river, rumors had been growing about the speculated outcome. By the time the last box had arrived from the mining community of Rust Creek, the speculation had reached a fever pitch, and not tapered off much since. It was only when some of the families with smaller children opted to retire for the evening that the momentum began to wane.

  As it was, Cal believed the election was going to be very close. He had heard from many other colonists, and it seemed that Dayton and Darius were neck and neck, with the former colonel holding a slight edge. Cal could only conclude from how rarely he heard the name Quinn that the engineer from Gabriel was not likely to win.

  Alexis found her way to him in the crowd, having just finished her shift at the kitchen. She carried a cup of steaming coffee in each hand, passing one down to Cal before taking a seat on the ground next to him.

  “I didn’t miss the show, did I?” she asked as she took a swig of her drink.

  “Nope. Still watching paint dry.”

  “I’m confused. Is it Quinn who’s the paint, or Darius?”

  “Hard to tell. Quinn makes a hell of a mural though.”

  “I don’t know. I think he’s more of a sculpture. Modern realism at its finest, right?”

  Cal chuckled and took a gulp of the coffee. It was plenty hot, but both bitter and stale, like most of the food stores on the ships. He was still searching for a drink on Demeter that suited him other than water, but the plants that the botanists had thus far cleared for consumption didn’t have the same kick, or were too exotic for his tastes. Tea had never been his thing on Earth, and Demeter’s equivalents were no different.

  “I wonder how long it’s going to take,” Alexis remarked as she snuggled closer to him.

  He shrugged and put his arm around her, downed the rest of his coffee, and set the cup down. “I’m hoping that it’s sometime before midnight. I’m getting too old to stay up like this,” he smirked.

  “Poor old Cal. Can’t keep up with the cool kids or the politicians.”

  “I take that as a compliment. At least the last part.”

  “There’s a lot less shaking hands and kissing babies going on here than I remember.”

  “That’s cause we cut through all the bullshit. Guess all it took was hitching a ride on a few trillion dollars’ worth of stolen hardware and leaving the rest of humanity to die. Oh, and that thing of not having any babies to kiss. That helps too.”

  “I see your optimism’s still unchecked there, buddy,” she grinned.

  “Shh,” he interrupted. “Something’s going on.”

  The crowd quickly hushed as Fred Hausner and Don Abernathy emerged from the belly of Michael. Don stopped at the top of the ramp after handing Fred a powerful lantern. Hausner proceeded down the gangway, where he was joined at the bottom by a ferry crew. The four men headed directly for the river.

  They’re going to Gabriel to announce the election results.

  As Abernathy lingered at the mouth of the ship, the three candidates formed a line behind him, constantly looking between the attorney and the crowd. Darius’s lips moved as he uttered something to the other men around him. Each reacted with a nod, and the men all shook hands.

  The silence in the crowd lasted only a few minutes. Then the restlessness started. Muttered questions began to leap from circle to circle in the crowd, and soon after chants of “Tell us” began to rise from the gathered citizens and they stood in unison with their fists in the air.

  Abernathy stood firm in his position, motioning to the crowd to be quiet. “It will be a few minutes, my friends. Look to the south, where the kitchen stands. Our friend and neighbor Gail will shine a light to us when Counselor Hausner has safely reached the people of South Concordia. Only then may I give the results, per our agreement.”

  Groans and shouts permeated the crowd, but Abernathy shook his head and stood firm, reiterating the importance of his colleague’s mission. Cal grinned and shook his head in disbelief of his fellow citizens.

  “So who did you vote for?” Alexis’s question was unexpectedly blunt.

  It took him a moment to realize that the question wasn’t a joke. They had discussed the topic many times, and Cal had expressed his uneasiness in choosing between the man that relied on him as a crew member and the man who had single-handedly questioned the corruption of a commanding officer.

  “I couldn’t do it,” he admitted. “I couldn’t pick between Darius and Dayton.”

  Alexis drew away from his body and looked at him in shock. “Why?”

  “I just couldn’t do it. I mean, I owe so much to Colonel Dayton…”

  “Tom,” she corrected.

  “Sorry, Tom. But would this election have even happened without Darius? I mean, I was there at the table. He was the one who brought it up. And even if he hadn’t, the whole discussion wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t taken down Eriksen. I mean, he really placed his life above everyone else’s. How can that be ignored?”

  “By the fact that he was never responsible for anything other than Gabriel’s computers before all that happened. It’s pretty clear to me who should be leading the colony; the only person left who actually led something.”

  Her argument was déjà vu of their discussions over the past few nights. It aggravated Cal that he couldn’t make a decision either way, despite Lexi’s arguments for Dayton. He had been apathetic about many things as a teenager, mostly dealing with couture or where to go to dinner, but he had never believed that he would pass up making a decision in an election.

  Until the first one he had ever been involved in, four point three light years from where he had first registered to vote and never gotten a chance to. The debate between the three candidates had not helped him either, except to affirm that Tyler Quinn was not going to receive his vote. After all, if he could not choose between his commanding officer and the Hero of Concordia, why would he pick the man who stood in their shadows?

  “I just don’t think anyone said anything meaningful,” he deflected. “I mean, they all sound the same when they’re up there.”

  She shrugged and sighed. “I don’t know if that’s because they all sound like politicians or if it�
��s because they all have the same vision for us. It wouldn’t surprise me either way. There’s just a few thousand of us, it’s not like managing the colony will be that huge of a task. There were mayors back on Earth that had easier jobs than our next governor.”

  “Easier?” Cal scoffed. “Name me one mayor that you know from Earth that had to feed four thousand mouths with no phones, no roads, no steel, barely any electricity, and a fucking scary-ass breed of bears running around wild. Easy isn’t anywhere in this game, sister.”

  Good. Swear at and demean your fiancée, the double within him shouted. That’s helpful.

  Cal closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. Go see Doc Taylor tomorrow morning, you idiot. You can take a day off work and no one will miss it.

  Not even the new governor?

  Only Quinn would, and I’ll be damned if he’s elected.

  Oh good, you’ve given me something to hope for.

  Cal growled even as he forced aside the inconvenient captive of his mind that needled at him. The absence of anti-psychotic medication was beginning to take its toll, and at times Cal had pondered the wisdom of consuming unknown native plants just to see if it would shut up the ‘Twin Cal’ he kept locked inside and hidden from the world.

  Alexis remained silent, choosing to drown her words in what little coffee was left in her cup. He knew at once that he had screwed up again, and wrapped his arms around her.

  “You’re probably right. Dayton has years of command experience, and Darius has none. I just couldn’t figure it all out, that’s all.”

  “Every vote counts, you know,” she replied sullenly.

  He wanted to reply with a statistical rebuke that his vote was statistically insignificant, but he knew that was false; of the four thousand or so colonists that made up Concordia and the outlying communities, only a hair more than two thousand were of legal age to vote. One individual ballot could sway the entire election, especially given the fact that there were three candidates, not two.

  Cal waited in silence wishing for another cup of coffee, or even a shot of the doctor’s whiskey to pass the time and ease the crushing silence between himself, Lexi, and the world beyond them. He resigned himself to wait on edge with the rest of the populace until Don Abernathy returned the results of the election, which would allow him the peace of mind to return to the tent he shared with his soon-to-be bride. The fifteen minutes that intervened were almost pure torture.

  “Counselor Hausner has arrived at Gabriel,” the attorney announced almost giddily. “And with that, I am proud to announce the results of the election.”

  Cal was not entirely sure, but he believed that he could hear a resounding cheer echo through the hills and across the valley from the south side of the river just a split second before Don Abernathy announced that Darius Owens was the newly elected Governor of Concordia.

  The crowd was too hard for the attorney to tame. Darius stumbled to the forefront, urged on by both Quinn and Dayton. Nervousy, he delivered his speech in a tone that surely could not be heard by those farther back in the mass than Cal.

  “I… I thank you for the honor, and for your support in this process,” the once disgraced lieutenant said. “The coming days are going to be hard for everyone. This isn’t news to anyone here. It will be my duty to ease the transition from colony to a functioning nation in the coming years. This isn’t something that is going to happen by some miraculous intervention on my part, but rather the cooperation and communal spirit of each and every citizen.

  “I may be your governor, but I am not above you. Without you, I don’t exist. Without you, the citizen to your left or to your right does not exist. I may ask things of you in the coming days, and you may disagree with them, but I do not, in my heart, believe that I will ever do anything to betray you. Please keep that in mind, and do not betray your brothers and sisters in Concordia either. We walk the road together in Honor and Unity.”

  “Honor and Unity!” shouted Cal. He was joined in unison by the former crew members, as well as a good portion of the civilians, including Lexi.

  “And it is in the spirit of Unity that I make my first decision,” Darius continued.

  First decision? Doesn’t he start in the morning?

  “I don’t want a chasm between those who voted for me and those who voted for another man who stands before you. Whoever was certified in second place by the election board will be my deputy governor,” he boomed. “And my other worthy opponent will also hold an office, which will be determined at a later date by myself and my deputy.”

  A few gasps in the crowd were muffled out by the thunderous applause that followed.

  I should have voted for him, Cal thought as he joined in the praise.

  Gov. Darius Owens

  11 June, Year of Landing, 10:43

  Gabriel

  Darius glanced up as his deputy slid a green enameled plate in front of him, stacked with grilled and spiced trout, a Demeter pear, and a salad made from native greens recently cleared for consumption by the botanists.

  “Thank you, Tom,” he said as he leaned back and stretched his taut joints.

  It still felt awkward addressing Thomas Dayton by his first name, though he had quickly trained himself to do so. There were times that he wondered if he would ever get used to the informal greetings that etiquette allowed him to use, while many of the colonists would feel compelled to address Darius by his title rather than by his name.

  He collected the myriad reports laid out in front of them and placed them in a stack to his right before starting in on his lunch. Tom took the seat at the former negotiating table directly across from Darius. He commandeered the stack of reports and began to flip through them, sorting them into four piles.

  “Is that all we get for today?” Darius asked.

  Tom nodded. “Don’t expect a report from Rust Creek yet. It’ll probably be a week or so before they respond. Looks like we finally got the grid reports from your friend Novak today.”

  “Nice to see he got off his butt.”

  “Some people are more suited to trade work than paperwork.”

  “I know. That’s why I don’t need to read that particular report. I already know he’s finished running power from both ships to the river and got the first five buildings prewired on each side.”

  “Alright, then why did you force him to send an update if you weren’t going to read it?”

  Darius gestured his intent to reply with one finger as he chewed on a bite of his salad. The native greens were a tad on the bitter side, but the nutritional values that the scientists had reported were impressive. They were relatively poor sources of iron and vitamin C compared to their Earth equivalents, but their other mineral and vitamin contents were unusually high, particularly potassium, pyridoxine, and niacin.

  “I want to make sure he doesn’t get in the habit of slacking when we need an update from him,” he replied after he swallowed the bite. “He’s going to have to start working with other teams here soon and we can’t have him be a roadblock.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Dayton finished sorting the reports as Darius devoured his meal and slid the plate aside. He stretched out his hand, accepting a stack from his subordinate. The pages included detailed reports from South Concordia regarding their stockpiles of timber, stone, and gathered native foods, as well as the progress on establishing three more farms on the outskirts of the town.

  “It’s the eleventh today, right?”

  “It is.”

  Darius shook his head and picked up a pen. He scribbled some quick math on the page, and the results weren’t pleasing. They were running out of time in the predicted growing season, and pulling resources from the tilling of these fields and the construction of farmhouses would allow him to concentrate on other projects such as the industrial sector on the riverfront. On the other hand, food was essential, and industry could be built later.

  “Have you looked at this one yet, Tom?”

  “I have. I wa
s afraid something like that might happen when I got the first status reports from this side of the river.”

  Darius sunk deeper into his chair as he reviewed the sketched map drawn on the second page of the report and his own math, verifying it once again in his head. He then reached for his clipboard and paged through the ship’s inventory until he got to the seed bank.

  “Have them plant as much alfalfa and grass as they can.” He traced his finger down the page to an entry with multiple quantities hand written and then scribbled out. “Do we have any more millet?”

  “Not on Michael. We moved our last crate of cereal grain seeds to Gabriel two days ago.”

  “Alright. Who’s on standby today?”

  Tom paused slightly. His reply came in a soft, subdued voice. “Dan Forrest.”

  The one remaining officer who conspired with Doctor K to steal the ships.

  The first act Darius took after his inauguration was actually Tom’s idea, first voiced well before the elections. He had unilaterally pardoned everyone in the colony who was accused of a crime. This not only cleared Forrest of the charges that Tom had not acted upon, but it also allowed him to order Doctor Kimura’s release from stasis. But Darius was careful to make sure it was understood that while Eriksen’s supporters such as Doug Garza were also free of culpability, crimes that occurred after the edict would be treated as normal. Thus the criminal slate was wiped clean, and singular focus could return to the task of colonization.

  “Have him take a look through the seed bank for that crate. If he can find it, get it in the ground ASAP. I want those structures built to the point where the weather won’t rot them out over the winter, then everyone needs to be reassigned to the mill projects on this side.”

  “Are we assigning those farms to anyone?”

  “Not yet. I want the Porters and the Lopezes to work out tending the crops. It’ll be a bit more work for them now, but I don’t see another good alternative.”

  Tom nodded and took down notes for the orders. “We’ve got sixteen people working those farm projects right now. We don’t need that many on the mill projects. Ten, tops.”