Salvation (Technopia Book 4)

by Greg Chase

  The negative body language and sighs of disapproval hung heavy in the room. Jayde attempted to maintain the calm. “Before we resort to threats, let’s hear whatever it is that has driven you to such extreme measures.”

  Of all the people in the room, Sara knew Jayde would be in a unique position to understand the problem, having spent so much time on Earth. “First of all, I know laying blame won’t get us anywhere. We all bear responsibility for the apocalypse that’s about to befall Earth.”

  Sara gave the board a moment to digest her words. Some faces fell in resignation, others looked ready to argue, but none showed surprise. They knew what they’d done. Jayde again attempted to steer a nonconfrontational course. “The fleet of ships that has left Earth isn’t just a means of lessening the population density, is it? And my guess would be the pirate attack currently going on along the transport lanes is part of this coordinated invasion.”

  “My sister is trying to save as much of Earth’s people, culture, biology, and history as possible. But those refugees need a place to settle. We’ve made arrangements with as many planets, moons, and outposts as we can, but the Moons of Jupiter will need to do their share.”

  The board chairman rubbed at the stubble of his beard. “You could have just asked.”

  “I’m afraid we couldn’t. Our relationships haven’t been the best since the day the Tobes of Earth were set free. To let you know of our crises would have put us at your mercy, at best, and at worst, you’d have built a military strong enough to bar us from your region. All this could have been avoided had the solar transfer array not been hijacked, but again, there’s enough blame to go around.”

  The man nodded slowly. “So what is your proposition?”

  “Rendition has already purchased Praxidike and Taygete. We’ll set up operation on those two moons. Together with the pirates, we intend to regulate the transport of goods between Jupiter’s moons. This will allow us to keep an eye on things. The other corporations will be free to conduct business as usual for a time. But certain changes are inevitable, and the sooner you come to terms with this new reality, the better. As part of this arrangement, each moon will allow the immigration of enough of Earth’s refugees as they can reasonably accommodate.”

  Jayde stretched out her long fingers on the highly polished surface of the conference table. “And what of your precious Tobes? None of us are willing to accept a technological revolution.”

  “That revolution has already begun, in case you hadn’t noticed. But as you might guess, saving the Tobes of Earth has been especially challenging. I doubt there are enough out here to cause you much trouble.”

  “I’m not that naïve,” Jayde said. “Even if we were to take your words at face value, what was the point of disrupting Kalyke’s network and placing us under your thumb?”

  “No businessperson chooses to deal from a position of weakness. I needed to make an example of Kalyke, and as the most powerful Moons corporation, I needed to make sure Europa would do my bidding.”

  Various fists balled up around the table, but all the members deferred to the board chairman. “I’m pretty sure I speak for all of us when I say we don’t intend on being Rendition’s puppet.”

  “It’s the price you’re going to have to pay to remain in charge. There may not be many Earth Tobes out here, but there are enough to force you to listen. Isn’t that right, Joshua?”

  Looking every bit the corporate executive Sara remembered, Joshua materialized out of the chairman’s computer and stood silently beside the man in charge.

  “You haven’t left much to chance,” Jayde said. “Your father would be proud.”

  “My father was a horrible businessman who never realized nor utilized his strengths. That’s not a mistake I intend to repeat.”

  The chairman looked over the technologically based entity by his side. “And you have these beings in every corporate office—infesting all our computers?”

  “As I said, I have no interest in running your businesses. But I do intend on keeping an eye on things. And before you get any bright ideas of purging your systems as you did when you flipped the switch to your moon-suns, realize I have another Tobe army among the pirates.”

  Pushing a powerful man—let alone a board chairman—into a corner in front of his colleagues was never a good idea, but so far, he was handling the situation with remarkable tact. “I suppose that brings us to the root of our problem. What if we return you the satellites that make life possible beyond Jupiter?”

  “I’m hoping you’ll realize this is in your own best interest. The people of Earth would have more room to settle. The pirates would find bases outside of your realm. And you’d be welcomed back into the interconnected life among all the settlements of the solar system. But nothing would change immediately. It’ll be years before the abandoned terraformed outposts can be brought back from the dead.”

  Jayde started tapping on the table with her well-manicured nails. “But you would consider divesting your interest and moving Rendition away from our orbit of influence if power were restored?”

  “As you have nothing currently to barter with, I’d want a show of good faith before such an idea could be considered.”

  “Such as?” asked the chairman.

  “Stand down your armada, and give the pirates safe passage back to their outposts.”

  18

  Though it had been long expected, as Leviathan rounded Mars, the unthinkable finally happened. Emily stared in wide-eyed disbelief at the bridge view screen as Earth’s exploding moon lit up the darkness of space. For the first time, she truly understood why people had trouble accepting the inevitable. The sheer magnitude of the devastation was more than the human mind could accept. It took an hour for all the nuclear material to completely combust, and for that entire time, communication throughout the space freighter was silent as a graveyard.

  She knew those aboard ship would be huddled in one place to experience the very human reaction of banding together in times of great sorrow. But unlike them, she had never really called Earth her home. Though she hadn’t witnessed the death of Chariklo, that small planet had meant everything to her and the people she loved. Her position on Earth had been to save as much as she could, and that phase of her job was completed.

  As the now destroyed moon diminished in brightness, it became apparent Dr. Shot had been correct. Gravitational waves spread out quickly—first pushing, then pulling at Leviathan. Though the resulting black hole wouldn’t mean much in the grand scheme of the solar system, the effect on Earth would make life impossible.

  She found it difficult to envision all the people who’d just lost their lives. The only one she truly wished she’d been able to save was Dr. Shot even though staying behind had been his choice. She looked around at the rest of the fleet. There was still work to do, and the clock would now be ticking as every inhabitable rock in the solar system expected refugees from Earth to crowd onto their small oases.

  Her body felt unnaturally heavy in the captain’s chair, though whether from the barrage of emotions or the physical pull from the new black hole, she couldn’t say. “Lev, signal the fleet. Each ship is to follow its predetermined route to whatever refuge it’s been assigned. I no longer wish to be in charge.”

  “And if they all decide to invade whatever planet is closest?”

  Emily switched the view screen to the closest, and most obstinate, planet. “Mars can take care of itself. Honestly, I don’t care anymore. I just want to take you and run to the outskirts of the solar system, or even farther away if that’s possible.”

  Lev came on the view screen as an ancient wooden ship. “Ever hear the story of Noah’s ark?”

  “Tell me about it some other time. For now, I’d really just like to bury my head in the sand.”

  Lev morphed the image into the grand space freighter that she really was but kept the wood-plank look for her exterior. “It’ll take me a good week to catch up with Jupiter and its moons. I can keep the
fleet from instigating a planetary war for that long. Why don’t you move back to the agro-pod village, at least until we meet up with Jess and Sara?”

  Emily knew she’d been holding on too tight for too long. Running Rendition had never been her desire. People had a right to their own mistakes, and nowhere in the corporate by-laws did it say anything about saving mankind. Earth just wasn’t her problem and never had been. “That sounds like a wonderful idea.”

  As Emily floated free in the weightless garden, she longed to strip off her clothes and return to that young girl who enjoyed everything about her life. Her time on Earth, however, had left certain insecurities she’d have to overcome before she could once again embrace that free lifestyle.

  Grandpa Doc sailed up behind her. The opening of the main hatch invariably called him out to check on any new visitor. “Hey, kiddo. You finally coming back to the people who love you?”

  She knew the comment wasn’t meant to be snarky. “I’m not sure why I ever left.”

  “You left because your sister needed you.”

  She looked out the transparent wall of the pod toward the growing cloud of sun-lit dust that circled the dead planet. “It wasn’t because I thought I could save Earth?”

  Doc wrapped his arm around her to turn her toward the village that sat halfway down the transparent cylinder. “You knew better than that. Even if some great being had offered you that power, you wouldn’t have accepted it. In my opinion, you’re the wisest of the family, myself included.”

  She turned to him in mild shock. “No one’s ever said that about me. Sara was always labeled as the smart one, Dad as the reluctant god, and Mom as the grand adventuress. If I got mentioned at all, it was usually as the one most capable of loving others. I can’t imagine how anyone thought of any of us as wise.”

  “Maybe I’m just getting old—or introspective at the destruction of Earth—but having spent my life trying to develop this small utopia, I’m beginning to wonder if that’s even possible. You, my dear sweet granddaughter, never bothered with trying to change anyone. You accepted each of us as we were and allowed us the dignity of choosing our own destruction without judgment.”

  She’d never heard him so morose, but then, he had reason. “You’ve had more success here with this village than any of us could have expected on Earth in our wildest dreams.”

  He sighed as he looked over the small gathering of dwellings made from living plants. “Any success has been a collaborative effort by all of us. That’s the secret, I think: everyone together has to strive for a higher society. It doesn’t work if there’s just one person trying to drive people forward, whether through charismatic leadership or regulation. Ultimately, neither one works because individuals, left to their own desires, will always choose selfishness over the common good.”

  Emily pulled him away from their course back to the village to talk in relative privacy along the pod wall. “Has something happened in the village? I’ve never heard you talk this way.”

  His laugh always put her at ease as though it was rocking her to sleep. “The village is fine. We had a challenge with all the visitors from Earth wanting to dissect and offer advice on our utopia, but once things started getting a little dire, people forgot about us. We’d tried to create a new way for people to deal with each other in the hope of one day returning that learning to Earth. Now there’s no one left to further what we’ve built. All the societies spread throughout the solar system have their own ideas about what works best. They don’t want to hear from a bunch of free-love sexual-equality new-age hippies.”

  “So the village intends to go back to its self-imposed isolation?” She knew the history well enough. Doc and the other elders had never felt welcome on Earth.

  “Your father saved us from the ravages of the Kuiper Belt, but he also put us on a path we hadn’t intended. My generation never thought we could free ourselves from our conditioning. Those of your mother’s age were never large in number. At best, they were our test subjects. If we’d been left to our home on Chariklo, we’d have looked to the children of your generation for the first real signs of change. But a controlled experiment stretching over four generations without deviation is a lot to expect.”

  Emily always enjoyed Doc’s speculations on what could be possible for human interactions. “Overcoming biology is a challenge at best. I suppose without cutting a society off from mankind’s past, it’d be pretty tough to rid a people of those temptations toward male domination and aggression.”

  “Our original premise was if we could condition a generation of people to balance the biological equation—truly make men and women equal—then the issues that arise out of that power play might also become less prevalent. But that complete equality may not even matter. Men like to dominate, and women like to be taken care of. If we accept that everyone should be free to live as they wish, we naturally end up with a male-driven society. Some people will always desire complete equality, some will prefer the traditional Earthly roles, but not enough would long for flipping the equation.” He pointed back toward Earth. “So long as individual freewill is valued above human evolution, I fear that destruction is the ultimate result.”

  “You paint a bleak picture for the human species, or any species for that matter.”

  He floated around to look at the village. “I can’t say I understand the reasoning for this life. If I had designed reality, I might have made the inherent obstacles a little easier to overcome. But then, perhaps they originally were and it was our desires that drove our species into its current form. I’d still like to believe that, with the right isolation and ideals, we could create a higher state of being. It does seem like the deck is stacked against such a proposition, however—like something beyond our comprehension is constantly messing with the plan.”

  “Next time I see God, I’ll ask Him.” She knew he’d take it as a sarcastic response and not the truth she’d unintentionally let slip.

  Settling back into village life wasn’t as easy as Emily had hoped. Not that she didn’t feel welcome. She was their precious daughter, and that wouldn’t ever change. But their impression of her was no longer complete. She’d seen too much of human nature to blindly accept the idealistic version of utopia her grandfather had tried to create. She’d gone from knowing every person around her intimately on Chariklo to discovering a whole world full of people and Tobes on Earth. There were so many individuals in existence that even if she spent every hour of every day trying to get to know them all, it’d be impossible. The allure of the unknown often pulled her out of the comforting safety of the agro pod to restlessly wander the ship.

  The main living pod that mirrored her beloved agro pod along Leviathan’s axis, with its towering structures and crowds of people, reminded her of Times Square—though beyond the initial impression, she experienced a greater love for the city in space. The stout buildings that had muscled their way up from the ground on Earth were represented in the pod by graceful structures—gentle giants that leaned invitingly over the pedestrian traffic. People ambled along the passageways though commerce—as it had been understood on Earth—had less to do with furnishing their living spaces than outfitting themselves for the next adventure. Emily envied the people trying on new space leathers or excitedly poring over computer-generated three-dimensional images of faraway outposts. They were freed from Earth’s destruction like children released from the deathbed vigils of some beloved relative. Sorrow was present in their voices and demeanor, but so was a hopeful optimism of what lay ahead now that they were free to get on with their lives. If only the cycle of destruction could be broken. But she was beginning to see her grandfather’s point—that wasn’t something that could be imposed. It had to be a shared vision.

  A small display next to her flashed an image of Lev as a protective bird watching over her flock. “Thought you might like an update. Everyone aboard is secure, and we’re operating normally.”

  Emily leaned against the bulkhead next to the vie
w screen. “What are your capacities when it comes to knowing who’s on board? On Earth, there were so many Tobes I never had any trouble with people’s hidden agendas. People were just less of a mystery.”

  “Most of the refugees had Tobes working with them on Earth. They’re aboard too, just in suspended animation. As I’m the one doing the suspending, they can still talk to me.”

  Emily had done all she could to save as many Tobes as possible, but she hadn’t considered that the technological beings of no mass might have also had their own escape plan. “I didn’t realize you had that kind of capacity.”

  “Well, they can’t manifest or anything. Not many wanted to be separated from the people they loved. So even though there’s no guarantee there will be a network for them in the future, those aboard have chosen to become a part of me rather than face oblivion.”

  “Do you think you could put together a profile of each person on Leviathan? I’d like to cull those who would best fit in with the village.” She didn’t have a plan yet, but the first step was to know what she had to work with and who might be an obstacle.

  “You thinking of spreading Doc’s experiment to all the other pods?”

  Emily hadn’t quite gotten that far. The village wasn’t in a position to dictate how others lived. They wouldn’t even if they could. She just didn’t want a bunch of power-hungry people on board her ship. “I’m not sure. In the biological reserve, we saved the DNA of more than one specimen of each of Earth’s life forms. It seems to me we might want to have more than one form of society represented as well, just not one that would again result in destruction.”

  “Am I to take it you don’t intend to settle among the Moons of Jupiter?”

  Emily suspected her mother and sister had just assumed she’d join them. But as was often the case, they hadn’t bothered to consult her. “I can’t see joining a society no better than the one I just left.”