Children of the Divide
Page 38
“Chao!” Theresa said as she stepped out from behind her husband and hugged the Ark’s longtime captain. “You’re sweating like you’ve run a marathon.”
“Hello, Tess,” Chao Feng said coyly. “So good to see you. Gravity is a harsh mistress.”
“Well don’t just stand there. Come in, come in.”
“Chao,” Benson said, with considerably more surprise than his wife had shown. “What are you doing… ahem, I mean, what brings you to town?”
“I had to come down the beanstalk for some rah-rah powwow with Administrator Agrawal. Thank Gods that’s over.”
“OK, and now you’re in our house…”
“Ignore him, Chao. Can I get you anything? Tea? A beer?”
“No, thank you. I just ate, maybe too much. We don’t get a lot of native food upwell and I may have overindulged. I am exhausted, though. May I sit?”
“Been neglecting your full-gee conditioning, huh?” Benson said.
“I haven’t had a great deal of free time lately.”
“Yeah, I can appreciate that.”
Chao groaned as he sank into the living room sofa as if a dux’ah was sitting on his chest. “Listen, I’ll cut right to the quick. I haven’t talked to my son since the riots.”
“So call him?”
“I can’t. You know I can’t. I can only talk to him off the record. Way off.”
“And?” Benson said, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“And I know Benexx is upstairs talking to him right now.”
“How the hell do you… Wait.” Benson pointed a finger at him. “You’re eavesdropping on our home network!”
“No,” Chao objected. “OK, yes. Obviously. But it’s off the books. All of Jian’s accounts and network permissions have been blacked out and he’s not supposed to be talking to anybody over here. But between him and your kid’s tinkering, they get around it. Ze’s a clever little shit. I’ve… turned a blind eye. I just want to talk to him. That’s the only reason I’m here. Please, Bryan, it’s my kid.”
“Where have I heard that before?”
Theresa elbowed him in the side. “Of course you can talk to Jian.” She held out a hand towards the stairs. “Right this way.”
Benson started to follow them upstairs, but Theresa put a hand on his chest and pointed for the living room. “Nope, you’re sitting this one out, big fella.”
“But it’s my house!”
“And you can have the whole bottom half of it to yourself for the next few minutes. Shoo.”
Benson flushed, but after almost two decades of marriage, knew how to pick his battles. He turned around on a heel and proceeded to flop down on the couch lengthwise. The movie selection Theresa had made for the night was still stuck on the summary. Some insufferable-looking mid twenty-first century rom-com.
Benson wrinkled his nose at the selection and instead flipped through his plant’s entertainment menu until he found something he wanted to watch. The Hunt for Red October. Now that sounded more like it.
He toggled the playback icon, but no sooner had Sean Connery’s beard come fully into frame, an emergency call broke through and replaced the title screen with that soft, pallid face of a young floater lieutenant hovering among the buzz and chaos of the Ark’s bridge.
“Mr Benson!” the lieutenant yelped.
“Got it in one, kid.”
“I’m sorry?”
Benson rubbed a temple. “Yes, this is Mr Benson. What do you want? It’s late and you just bust in on Tom Clancy.”
“Who?”
“Jesus Christ… Why did you call me, miss?”
“Oh, yes. Of course. I apologize for interrupting, but we can’t raise Captain Feng on his plant link, and Shambhala’s security feeds put him at your door just before we lost his signal.”
Benson grumbled as he got up from the couch again and shuffled over to the base of the stairs. “Chao! Call for you!”
“Are you serious?” Chao’s irritated voice came back down from the door to Benexx’s bedroom.
“Wish I wasn’t. They said they can’t reach your plant.”
“Because I turned it off!”
“You can do that?”
“I can.” A little furious tromping down the stairwell later and Chao struck parade ground rest on the floor of Benson’s living room. The young, mortified lieutenant tried to match her commanding officer’s rigid stance, which, given the fact she was floating in micrograv, ended up looking ridiculous.
“What is it, Lieutenant Pershing?” Chao finally said after returning her salute.
“I’m sorry to bother you, sir. But we’ve had a report come in from the Early Warning network site on Varr.”
Benson’s ears perked up at that. The crown jewel of the Early Warning network had only gone operational two days ago. If they’d already spotted something, it could only mean… Benson’s heart froze in his chest. Their mad, desperate escape from Earth hadn’t gone unnoticed after all. Somewhere along the line over the last two and a half centuries, the Ark and her exodus had been spotted. Maybe in the first mad dash away from Earth riding on a trail of nuclear explosions, maybe when they’d slowed back down for insertion into Gaia’s orbit, or maybe at any point in the last eighteen years whenever they’d let their radio emissions signature grow too bold for the sake of convenience and expediency.
Whatever the reason, humanity’s adoptive home was on the chopping block. A quick glance over at Chao’s face told Benson that he hadn’t been the only one to reach the same conclusion.
“They’ve found us,” Chao said, his voice even, expertly concealing the panic and terror Benson knew he must be feeling, the same emotions that were on the verge of overwhelming his own psyche.
“No, sir. That’s just it. We’re not under attack. It’s not another Nibiru.”
“Well then? What the hell is it?”
The lieutenant took a moment to compose herself, as though she couldn’t believe what she was about to say herself. “It’s a radio signal. A message sent in the clear, totally unencrypted.”
“From who, lieutenant?!” Chao demanded, his voice and composure on the verge of cracking.
“Earth, sir. Home.” Lieutenant Pershing swallowed hard. “It’s a distress signal, sir. And it’s only thirteen years old.”
Benson looked around the room, first to Chao Feng, then to his wife, both of whom stood slack-jawed in existential shock.
He swallowed hard. “That’s not supposed to be there.”
Acknowledgments
This book was started on January 1, 2016, and its final version turned in March 28, 2017. Over the course of those fifteen months, the world shifted. Dark and malicious forces grabbed hold of the most powerful country on Earth, and shook the European Union to its very foundations.
Self-evident truths I had grown up with – the US is a democracy, western civilization is pluralistic, fascism and nationalism are dying ideologies – have been overturned. In their place, a growing sense of chaos and a world on fire have supplanted what turned out to be only comforting platitudes. We find ourselves fighting the same demons that our great-grandparents faced down more than seventy years ago.
But oh, what a fight.
In the last fifteen months, I’ve seen people of every color, orientation, and walk of life organize and push back in the most incredible and inspiring ways. Always energetic, often outrageous, and occasionally violent, a new sleeper has awakened. Historic and unprecedented numbers of people, united across the world, have stood up to say in one voice, “We will not go backwards.”
I want to acknowledge all of you. Everyone who has marched in protest, mailed letters, posted memes, wrote jokes, called their reps, drove to town halls, and even those who threw a punch, all to push back against hate and intolerance, xenophobia and misogyny. You are doing the heavy-lifting of building the future we sci-fi authors dare to dream about.
I doubt the work will be done by the time this modest little book goes on sale. But I k
now you will continue to carry the fight, and I’ll be proud to stand alongside any and all of you in the trenches.
Good hunting.
About the Author
Patrick S Tomlinson is the son of an ex-hippie psychologist and an ex-cowboy electrician. He lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with a menagerie of houseplants in varying levels of health, a Ford Mustang, and a Triumph motorcycle bought specifically to embarrass and infuriate Harley riders. When not writing sci-fi and fantasy novels and short stories, Patrick is busy developing his other passion, performing stand-up comedy.
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patricktomlinson.com • twitter.com/stealthygeek
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Divide and rule
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An Angry Robot paperback original 2017
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Copyright © Patrick S Tomlinson 2017
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