by J. J. Green
“I can understand the reasoning behind that protocol,” said Strongquist, “but if a human were engaged in mass murder, and it was impossible to stop the person without risking their death, it would make little sense to abstain from action and allow more people to die. One death is preferable to several.”
“I guess I can’t disagree. It’s only that during my time it wasn’t felt necessary to program androids for such a scenario. Mass murder and war were things of the past.”
A Guardian entered the room. “Excuse me,” she said as she came around the table. Cariad moved out of her way. “I am about to begin the autopsy. You may wish to leave. The procedure may be disturbing for you to witness.”
“No, it’s fine,” Cariad replied. “I’ve seen plenty. Go ahead.” She said to Strongquist, “I’d like to see the test results when you have them.”
“Of course. I’ll send them directly to you as soon as they’re in.”
“There’s another thing I wanted to ask you: why didn’t the people who made you take the opportunity to escape Earth instead of creating the Guardians to come here and help us? I can understand that they probably didn’t want to risk coming here and infecting us with the virus, but then why didn’t they build their own colony ship?” However, even as she asked the question, Cariad knew the answer. “They didn’t have the resources, did they?”
“That’s correct. You are aware of the time and resources that went into building and stocking the Nova Fortuna? Mining, refining, industrial processing, manufacturing—these activities no longer occur on Earth. The people who created us and built the Mistral had a finite supply of materials. They used up what they had in order to try to save the Nova Fortuna colony from the Natural Movement plot.”
“They gave their lives for ours?”
“In a sense, though it was also true that no other planet that would support human life had been discovered. If the survivors had used the Mistral to escape Earth, they might have been wandering the galaxy until they died. And even if they replaced themselves with their offspring, their descendants would have died out eventually. The Mistral isn’t a colony ship, designed to support many generations of humans. Besides, it would only have held a fraction of the hundreds who helped to create it and us.”
As the Guardian performing the autopsy began to saw open the body’s skull, Cariad imagined those people of an Earth far in the future of her own, toiling to ensure the survival of the Nova Fortuna colonists, knowing that they would never personally benefit from their efforts or even see the results. Although Strongquist’s explanation made their work slightly less selfless than it had first appeared, they’d had no reason to complete it except for their desire to help strangers. Perhaps they’d seen the colonists as fellow human beings nevertheless, and perhaps they’d dreamed of saving human civilization.
It was a strange twist that the Guardians’ creators had worked so hard and with such good intentions, yet they had almost engineered the downfall of humanity’s last hope.
“There’s something else I don’t understand,” Cariad said to Strongquist. “Why the big secret about you being androids? Why not tell us the truth from the beginning?”
“I cannot answer that for certain,” he replied. “That was never explained to us. If I were to guess, I would say that our creators wished you to accept our superiority and authority and that if you knew we weren’t human, you wouldn’t do that. They didn’t trust that you would accept our advice.”
“Ha!”
“Is something amusing?” Strongquist asked.
“That’s just like us and the Gens,” said Cariad. “We didn’t trust them to do the right thing. We didn’t respect them or their opinions. Your creators thought they knew best, despite the fact that they weren’t even here.”
“The exterior of the brain appears typical,” commented the Guardian performing the autopsy.
“I think her brain will be entirely normal,” Cariad said. “Twyla’s problem wasn’t a disease, though we’ll have to treat it like one.”
“I take it you’ll be examining all the colonists for the same tattoo?” Strongquist asked.
“Yes, but I don’t know what good it’s going to do. If the Natural Movement members guess that we might have that clue to identify them, they could remove the tattoos easily enough. It would be painful without anesthetic, but it could be done.”
Cariad’s tiredness settled deeper. She yawned. “I really need to lie down.”
“Of course. I’ll arrange a room to be prepared for you.” Strongquist didn’t speak aloud or go anywhere in order to make the request. Like any machine, he accessed the ship’s comm internally. “I’m also arranging that all our data be accessible to you. You may wish to browse the files before we deactivate in case you have any questions. Though you will also have the option to reactivate myself or another Guardian for further information.”
“I don’t think anyone will be doing that any time soon.”
“I understand. However, one item of information that we withheld is very important. We didn’t wish to alarm you all, but we have been scanning for signs of life within this galactic sector ever since we arrived, and we have identified several planets that appear to not only bear life, but sentient life. At some point in the future, it may be prudent to reactivate us in order to help protect the colony from hostile alien organisms. I would strongly advise not to hesitate in this scenario.”
“Hostile aliens might attack the colony?” Cariad exclaimed. “That’s all we need.”
“It is only a possibility. As far as we can tell, if there is intelligent life within the local galactic area, it is currently unaware of the colony’s existence. And we haven’t detected any signs that alien organisms have visited Concordia.”
Strongquist’s words were not reassuring, but Cariad didn’t have the energy to deal with the new information at that moment. “Fine. Great. Anything else you haven’t told us?”
“I’m not aware of anything of equal importance.”
“Okay, well, if you think of anything, put it in a comm. I’m going to rest for a while.”
As Strongquist escorted her to a room, Cariad felt a pang of envy for Ethan. Exploring the new planet was what he’d always wanted to do, and he would be far away during the long, hard days that lay ahead rebuilding the broken colony. She wished she could go with him but he needed to be alone for a while.
Never mind, Cariad thought. She had new people to grow.
Author’s note
Thanks for reading The Concordia Deception! I hope you enjoyed the story.
In case this is the first of my books that you’ve read, I’ll introduce myself. I’m a British writer who’s currently living in Taiwan with my family, which includes a black cat called Black Cat. I’ve also lived in Australia and Laos so I suppose you could say I’m a bit of a wanderer.
Like most writers, I dreamed of being an author from when I was a child, right from around the time a teacher asked me to read out one of my stories to my classmates. Good teachers make all the difference, don’t they? Later on, other teachers and lecturers encouraged me to write, yet for a long time I didn’t have the confidence to really try. Then a few years ago when I hit middle age I thought I would give it a go. Better late than never.
The Concordia Deception is book one in Space Colony One—Cariad and Ethan’s story of living in humanity’s first deep space colony. I wanted to write about space colonization from the perspective of someone with recent memories of Earth, and through the eyes of someone who grew up on a starship. I wondered how different their feelings would be and how they might react to life on a new planet. Then I wondered what might happen if a third group of powerful people were thrown into the mix. How would the politics play out and how would everyone react to dangers that faced the settlement? There are so many ideas to explore, I think the Space Colony One series is going to be at least three or four books.
I think Cariad’s character is a little bit based on myself. I lo
ve science and would love to have been a scientist, but words are more my thing. And, like her, I would miss my friends and family a lot during my time in deep space. Ethan, on the other hand, isn’t one particular person. He represents all the people I’ve met who have shown me that book smarts aren’t all that we need in this world. Yet he also feels the stigma people sometimes experience when they don’t meet the standards of rigid education systems.
Space Colony One explores how we might go about colonizing an Earth-like planet and how people might act in that situation. How would we set up the buildings, start up farming, and so on? Practicality is vital but basic human nature is going to figure strongly too. Power struggles are probably inevitable when the colonists are far from Earth and higher authorities. Hopefully if humankind ever attempts such a feat—I wish I could be around to see it—we would be able to weed out colonists with psychopathic or megalomaniac tendencies, though you never know.
I based the number of Gens on the theory that humanity went through a genetic bottleneck about 70,000 years ago. Some kind of catastrophe occurred and only a few thousand humans survived. With Cariad’s amazing knowledge of genetics, she manages to whittle the minimum number required for genetic heterogeneity down to two thousand, with additional donated eggs and sperm stored on the ship.
I deliberately kept the colonization equipment fairly low tech and set finite shelf lives on the high tech the colonists bring with them, simply because that’s what seems most realistic to me. While we would be able to re-supply the Moon and Mars with tech from Earth, we won’t have that luxury on a deep space colony. The only way for a colony to survive in the long term will be to rely on what they bring or build on-site. Until mining, refining, and manufacturing are up and running, high tech equipment won’t be available.
Extra-terrestrial species are always a fun factor in space colonization novels. I didn’t get into them much in this book but I’m going to make up for that in the sequels. The local life forms feature quite heavily in book two, The Fila Epiphany.
In The Concordia Deception the characters refer to an event they call the First Night Attack. That story is covered in the prequel novella, Night of Flames. You can pick up a free copy of the novella by signing up to my reader group. The link is below. If you don’t want to belong to the group, just unsubscribe after you collect your book. I really don’t mind.
Want to say hi and meet other JJ Green readers? Come over to my newly built Starship JJ Green. I’d love to see you there.
Jenny Green
New Taipei City
May 2018
Cariad and Ethan’s story continues in…
The Fila EPIPHANY
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ALSO BY J.J. GREEN
STAR MAGE SAGA
SHADOWS OF THE VOID SERIES
CARRIE HATCHETT, SPACE ADVENTURER SERIES
THERE COMES A TIME
A SCIENCE FICTION COLLECTION
LOST TO TOMORROW
DAWN FALCON
A FANTASY COLLECTION
Copyright © May 2018 J.J. Green
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying without written permission of the publisher or author. The exception would be in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First Edition.