by Larry Niven
“Well, it looks like we get to find out.”
Gabriel and Ali sat together on the dais, waiting for the students to notice and gather. Harry already sat at the Council’s feet, but the others, including Andrew this time, were all busy in a game of catch-the-disk, seeing who could leap highest and still land gracefully, disk in hand. Andrew’s bracelets jangled against each other so he rang loudly as he leaped, a signal for the other children to get out of his way. Andrew was one of the best players, and Rachel watched him catch the heavy disk with his feet, flip over in a one-eighty, and land triumphantly.
Ali clapped her hands and the players stopped and bounded over.
Gabriel started right in on the results. “Nick, you and Alexandra are the youngest two to pass. You’ll be in the advanced class next winter.” That meant that at least three younger children, including Sharon, didn’t pass. A groan came from the small knot of younger children. They’d all have to start over, most in different classes. They’d become simple farmers or get training for other town jobs.
Gabriel ignored it. “Eric, Julie, and Kimberly, you all passed. You get a break until Ali and I get back from planting.” The four oldest students—Harry, Rachel, Ursula, and Andrew—all looked at each other. It wasn’t possible they’d all failed, but Rachel’s heart sank.
Gabriel’s next words made it worse. “I want Andrew, Harry, Rachel, and Ursula to stay. Everyone else can leave.”
Rachel did her best to sit still while the others left. A knot of anxiety drummed at the top of her stomach, seeking release. She swallowed. Minutes passed, and Gabriel and Ali said nothing. Finally the meadow only contained the six of them.
Ali opened a new data window, larger than the one they’d used in the test. It showed darkness, and then the flash of a hand light bobbing as a dark figure walked down a path. Rachel squinted—it looked like—a human covered by tent material. Then the figure that held the light bent down and pulled up a tree; Rachel’s cecropia. As a hand reached for the plant, the tent fabric slipped for a moment. Metal rings glittered briefly in a flash of light across the wrist.
No one said anything for a long time. Rachel looked at Andrew, who looked at the ground.
Did he think he could hide? Rachel wondered. Then, At least he got caught. There were always cameras, everywhere.
“Andrew,” Gabriel broke the silence, “this is your real test.”
Andrew fidgeted, looking at the ground. “It was a joke.”
“Really?” Ali asked.
“You want us to get along. But she”—he pointed at Rachel—”she’s always perfect. Better than the rest of us. Besides, it was a joke. We play jokes on each other. It was just one tree.”
“Rachel worked hard on it,” Gabriel said. “It was the core of her pattern. You didn’t see that?”
Andrew spluttered. “It’s not fair. You pay more attention to Rachel than to any of the rest of us. And she only talks to Ursula. I had to do something to—”
Gabriel cut him off. “We cannot tolerate acts of vandalism.”
“But—”
“Explain to me why I shouldn’t lock you up to think about this.”
Andrew shot a hard look at Rachel. It’s not my fault! Rachel felt anger mix with her anxiety. Would Gabriel fail them all because of Andrew? Harry and Ursula weren’t even involved! She looked around. Ursula’s hand covered her mouth, her eyes watching Rachel instead of Andrew. Harry was stoic, not looking at any of them. He must have felt Rachel’s eyes on him, because he turned and blurted out, “Andrew, apologize!”
Ali looked at Harry sternly, and said, “You have been known to help Andrew play his jokes.”
Andrew’s eyes widened. “Harry didn’t help me.” His voice still sounded surly. “The tree’s okay. So what are you going to do to me?”
“Which choice I make depends on you.”
“I . . . I . . .” Andrew looked back at Rachel. “I’m sorry. I’ll get your tree down and help you plant it back.”
“That’s better,” Gabriel said. “A little. Explain why your actions were wrong.”
“Because, because it was right before the test?”
“And?” Gabriel asked.
“I don’t know.” Andrew glowered at the ground, fiddling with his bracelets.
Ali picked up the conversation from Gabriel. “You must forge a working team. Mistakes in a project like this can kill. Oh, I know, pulling up one tree won’t kill anyone. But what might you do with more powerful tools? This is not a stable planet—it’s a moon being forced into a temporary home. There are too many humans to fit on John Glenn, and if we destroy the fragile ecosystem, some of you will die. Small mistakes can mean a lot here. Why do you think we’re so careful about what we let you do? Even the four of you, our best students?”
Gabriel looked sternly at Andrew. “Andrew, you’re young. And smart. You will stay here for the next ten weeks and you alone will care for Teaching Grove. You’ve had a demonstration—we can see what you do. See that you convince us you care about Rachel’s plot as much as your own. Actually, better than your own. Failure will cause additional consequences.”
Ursula clutched Rachel’s hands. Rachel’s heart sank. Andrew responsible for the grove? For her trees? What would she be doing?
She glanced at Andrew. His face was beet-red and he murmured, “Okay. I’ll prove myself.”
“Rachel, Harry, and Ursula will go with us for this season’s planting. Be packed and back here by dawn tomorrow. Requirements have been sent to your pads.”
Rachel whooped. Ursula’s grin stretched ear to ear. Harry turned toward Andrew whose expression had shifted from penitent to stunned.
CHAPTER 2
LEAVING HOME
RACHEL AND URSULA stood at the edge of the grove, the path home winding away below them. “I can’t wait to see more of Selene,” Rachel said, pulling her right arm wing buckles tight against her biceps and forearm. “I’ve never been out of Aldrin before.”
“Maybe we can see the Hammered Sea,” Ursula lilted.
“See the sea? See the sea . . . see the sea . . .” Rachel teased her. She passed! We passed! We are going exploring . . .
Ursula laughed out loud. “Well, you know what I mean. None of us has been that far from Aldrin yet.”
“My father has,” Rachel said quietly. “How can I leave him? You won’t have any trouble leaving your great brood of brothers, but Dad will be all alone.”
“He’ll want you to go.”
Rachel nodded. “That’s what he’ll say.”
“I know you don’t want to leave him.” Ursula turned to grin at her friend. “I also know you couldn’t bear to stay home.”
“Of course I couldn’t.”
“You’ll manage. You’re always okay, Rachel.”
“It’s too bad it’s not just us, or maybe Alexandra. Harry makes me so mad—he’s always right, and he’s so quiet it’s uncanny.”
“Besides,” Ursula broke in, “he hangs around with Andrew.”
“I guess I’ll just be grateful it’s Harry and not Andrew—silence beats meanness.” Rachel stretched, poised to begin the run into flying. “Maybe Harry will do okay.”
“Maybe Apollo will rise twice tomorrow.”
“I’m excited,” Rachel said. “We passed!” She ran, beating Ursula into the air by two steps, extending her lead, all the way home.
The girls arrived at the outside poles winded and bubbly. They split toward their respective tents.
Her dad wasn’t home. A note said he’d gone to fix the solar power unit south of town.
Rachel folded herself down into a chair and turned her pad on, retrieving the packing list. It was short. Pad and stylus, wing gear, three changes of clothes, two pairs of shoes, and whatever she needed for hygiene. A short note from Ali told her they’d be northwest of Aldrin for eight to ten weeks.
Wow. They’d be gone the rest of summer and most of fall, returning just a month before Mid-Winter Week. Maybe she could bring ba
ck a special story about the trip for Festival Day.
Packing took nearly an hour. Rachel added and subtracted from her pile, finally settling on just what had been included in the list.
She reviewed lessons about the various planting machines. Some were too small to see, simple, dropped onto the ground like dust. Others were so big they made a human look like a leaf. Huge unmanned flat tillers opened Selene’s sterile regolith, turning it over and over and then scattering tiny short-lived machines that burrowed through dirt, releasing oxygen or mixed nutrients. Then they died, melting to carbon and air. A different set of tillers mixed in organics, sands, or clays. Spreaders followed last, scattering raw materials for cyanobacteria mats: thin shelves of nitrogen-fixing organisms that killed any trace of remaining nanotechnology.
Rachel remembered Gabriel telling her the first tasks of a terraformer, besides atmosphere and pressure, were water and soil.
Humans drove forty-foot-long manned “planters” that dug holes, made a specific soil for each plant, emplaced seedlings, and even tamped the soil down. People followed, checking work. Rachel expected to see the butt ends of planters for days.
A friendly scratch on the outside of the tent signaled that her father was home. She turned as he stepped inside.
He took off his hat and went to the sink, scrubbing oil and dirt from his hands; “I thought I’d never get the array working right again. I had to make a new gear; took me four hours. How did it go today?” He must have seen her face, because he stopped and shifted tone. “It did go well, didn’t it?”
The words came out in a rush. She told him about the whole test, and the surprise ending to the day. “We leave tomorrow morning.”
Frank didn’t say anything for a long time, surprise, pride, and anger flashing across his face. “Of course you have to go. It’s . . . so fast. I thought you’d be home a few more years.”
His face looked just like it had when they knew her mom wasn’t coming back. Even after ten years, she remembered. She shivered. “I promise to come back,” she said. “Surely it’s safe.”
“Ahhh, as safe as here, anyway. I’ll be okay.” He turned away and put on hot water. His voice was still strong. “The Councilman told me he might choose you, but I thought I had a few years still.”
“You mean Gabriel knew I’d pass?”
“We all knew you would pass. They’re picking leaders.”
“Leaders?”
“Well, you see how many more kids there are here. Half of Aldrin’s population is under twelve. Council needs people to plant more, tend what we’ve got, build new cities. Someone has to lead the ones that are young now. Your mom and I knew that when we had you.” He busied himself at the stove. “I’m putting soup on.”
“Good. Dad? What do you think about Andrew, and my tree?”
“I don’t know. Trill Johnson got angry and hit his mother twice when I was a boy. I haven’t seen him since. Probably he’s just on the ship. I didn’t ask. I never missed Trill. He was mean. Andrew’s his nephew.”
“He meant it as a joke,” Rachel said. “It was cruel, but it didn’t hurt anything.”
Frank stirred the soup. The sharp tang of onions and spices filled the room. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell what angers Council. You need to be careful. Dear, you only know Gabriel and Ali. Oh, you’ve met others, but never really worked with them.” He leaned toward Rachel and smiled softly. “What do you know about Council?”
“They’re making a world for us! I know they came from Earth, on John Glenn, and they made Selene, made it over so we can live here.” She thought. “I know we’re not where we were meant to be. They came here because they had starship trouble.”
“They are powerful.”
“Yes, but I like them, at least most of them. They’re interesting. Something to figure out, like a mystery.” She chewed her lip. “They keep secrets.”
Frank smiled sadly. “Yes, they do. You know about the antimatter generator, of course.”
“That’s not a secret. Council needs fuel for John Glenn.”
“So what are their goals?” he asked, serving her a bowl of soup.
“Plant Selene. Build a larger base for humans here—for us, for the people born here. Then the collider circles Selene. It makes their antimatter—”
“Their goal is to make the antimatter generator so they can leave us,” he said. “Their goals aren’t about us, not really.”
Rachel’s stomach dropped. “Leave?”
“That’s what they plan.” Frank looked at his bowl of soup, not catching Rachel’s eyes.
“They can’t go unless they take us with them. How would we live?”
“I don’t know. They won’t leave tomorrow, anyway.” Frank was still looking down, and his voice was thick, edged with bitterness. “So go planting. You’re almost grown, and I’ve taught you what I can. Just remember you were born here, like me, for them. We work for them.” He got up and hugged her good night. “Be a good student. Keep your eyes and ears open. Do what you’re told. Don’t forget that. Maybe someday you’ll be close enough to Council to learn more about them.” His face softened. “After all, I would never call Gabriel “Gabe.”
“I’ll remember.”
Rachel washed the dishes and got ready for bed herself.
Sleep came slowly. Her mind turned the day’s surprises over and over. Excitement about leaving, seeing places she’d only heard about, worry that her dad would be lonely. The idea of being a leader. Most of all, the idea of Council leaving. Leaving! Where would she and her dad get spices, and thread, and how would she learn new things?
The next morning, she woke ragged and tired. Her dad flew Rachel and Ursula up to the grove, smiling the whole way, as if his cautions of the night before had never been voiced. He handed both girls’ bags to Ali. “Take care of them.” He kissed the top of Rachel’s head. He had to stand on tiptoe to do it, and she threw her arms around him, squeezing tight before he pulled free and turned away.
A small flying plane waited in the meadow, and Rachel and Ursula climbed in the back next to Harry, who smiled at them but didn’t say anything. They rose up higher than the tops of the First Trees, circled, and accelerated away.
CHAPTER 3
PLANTING
RACHEL SHIELDED HER eyes from the sun and looked over at Gabriel. He drove sixty yards away, a small figure atop a twin of the huge planter she controlled. They shared communication links, but the whine and chatter of the machines made hand signals work better.
Gabriel held up one finger, and she waved acknowledgment.
Rachel settled the planter so that the control target matched the laser display overlaid on her retina. It was like looking at lines on top of pictures, both in front of the real world. It made her head hurt. She punched a series of commands, and then settled into her seat, reaching for a water bottle. Sweat poured down her brow and trickled down the back of her neck. They had been working since dawn. She needed a break.
The planter hummed and vibrated, rocking as it pulled soil up into the analyzer. Rachel watched displays identify the mineral content of the sample. The machine rumbled, stirring nutrients and measuring pods into the regolith and compost mixture with huge metal paddles. Finished soil dropped into a cone-shaped pile next to a hole. The whole process took about five minutes.
Rachel nudged her planter fifty yards past the waiting hole and shut it down, ears ringing in the sudden silence. As she clambered down the ladder on the side, she looked over her shoulder at Ursula and called, “Lunch after this planting.”
The planters frightened Ursula. So Rachel rode and Ursula followed, doing the stooping and planting and watering. This was the last week of this season’s planting, and even working into the steadily duskier nights, they were ten percent behind their goal, muscles tired and sore from the extra work.
Harry and Gabriel were already seated when Rachel joined them, choosing a rocky perch where she could look back across the field at the other ten teams. They
were all Earth Born. Earth Born were shorter, wider, brawnier than Moon Born. She watched in silence, drinking water and letting a soft breeze cool her.
“Your shadow is always slower than you are,” Harry said.
“She’s careful.”
“You’re careful.” He caught her glare and said, “Hey, hey, easy. Just noting the facts.”
Ursula was just now unbending from watering the cieba tree she had just planted. Adult Moon Born were taller than most Council, and Ursula, the tallest teenager, was already taller than Gabriel. Her sun-silhouetted figure looked like two branches on a tall stick, topped with a halo of light broken by flyaway bits of her spiky hair.
Ursula sat near Rachel, as far away from Harry as she could get and stay in the group. She blotted sweat from her forehead and high cheeks with a rag before reaching for water.
“Hey, slow and thin, we saved you some food,” Harry teased.
“Nice of you.” Ursula reached for the still untouched basket, extracting a bit of bread and a handful of berries.
“Maybe it will make you move faster.”
Ursula threw a berry at him, hard enough that it left a thin streak of juice on his cheek.
“Ahhhh—quit wasting food.” Ali’s voice chided them as she came up on the group. “Ready for tomorrow?”
“Do we still get to go flying?” Rachel asked.
“Yes. We need to start tilling now if we want to plant next year. That means a ground survey. It will be hard work, even though we’ll use a plane to get from place to place. We’ll be gone three days.” Ali pulled up an aerial photo in a data window, tracing the path they’d fly over.
“I’m tired,” Ursula said. “Can we have a rest day first?”
“We’ll rest during the winter, when it’s raining more often. Selene is growing, and people need plants. Right now, there are hundreds of us. There will be thousands by the time we build up industry, and a bigger town,” Ali said.