by Larry Niven
“Me too,” Rachel said. “He knows I’m teaching more than he lays out for me, and he hasn’t asked me about the details.”
“Yes,” Treesa said. “Astronaut told me that he helps you on his own sometimes. You better go meet him.”
As Rachel stood up to leave, Ali caught her eyes. “Rachel, you’ll need something to do while you wait for Beth to heal. We’re waking a hundred Earth Born in the next two weeks. I’ll ask Gabriel for your help.”
“Okay.” Despite everything, Rachel felt her spirits lift. Doing something besides endless garden experiments intrigued her.
As Rachel left, some of the questions she wanted to ask Ali and Treesa ran through her mind. Did Gabriel think like them? He had never talked to her about his personal beliefs, not really. It was important to him to leave Selene and get to Ymir. What was the Council’s actual plan for the Children? What was this refuge that Clare mentioned in the meeting? How much were Treesa, and Ali, and even Astronaut keeping from her?
Rachel walked along a bank of high planters full of cascading blackberry bushes. Tiny robotic flying machines buzzed around the planters scrubbing the air of excess water, keeping the local humidity acceptable for the raspberries and blueberries Rachel loved. The ripe berries smelled sweet. She realized that she hadn’t eaten all day. As she reached for a cluster of ripe blackberries, she heard the sound of crying. It sounded like a child, but there were no children aboard John Glenn.
Rachel edged quietly around the planter, making as little noise as possible. Berry vines snagged at her clothes and she pulled them away gently, stopping and stepping and pulling, stepping again, pricking herself. Red blood beaded where thorns caught her bare skin. As she rounded the corner of the planter, she saw a woman’s shape on a bench in front of one of the Council art pieces, a sculpted glass sphere of a terraformed Ymir. A vine she had pushed out of her way snapped back, burying a thorn in her shin. She cried out involuntarily.
Liren looked up; her eyes red-rimmed and face puffy. She recognized Rachel. Her face flashed from frightened to angry, and she made a strange snarling sound through her tears, gulping for air. She started to push herself up with her arms, preparing to stand.
For a split second, Rachel considered running. She stayed, stammering, “Can . . . can I help you?”
Liren glared at her, smearing the tears from her face with the back of her hand. “No one can. Especially not you.”
Rachel was shaking. “Why not? Weren’t we born to help you?”
“That is a problem, isn’t it? But you can’t—be here. We need to leave. We need to be away from here. And when we go—we’re leaving you behind. So do you see why you can’t stay here? Go back to Selene.” Liren’s breath came in little gasps and she stood, fists clenched, and said, “Go now. Go away. And don’t come back.”
Rachel stood her ground for a moment in shock, and then mumbled “Excuse me,” and backed away. She turned as soon as she passed the planter with its pulling vines, and ran down the spiral path to meet Gabriel.
CHAPTER 42
CHANGING GUARD
GABRIEL WORKED IN his office, surrounded by flashing data windows, fully engaged in monitoring the nanotechnology that transformed the asteroid called Refuge. He was alone for the first time in days. Rachel was in Medical helping Ali, and Erika had been called to an emergency High Council meeting. Most of Refuge was now inside a thick shell of industrial diamond. Within, a thickening spiral of corridors and large chambers resembled a nautilus shell. Refuge would be beautiful. The “down” side of the asteroid was untouched, just as they had found it: a thick meteoric reentry shield backed by whatever slag the nanobots had no use for.
Hours passed. Gabriel checked and rechecked parameters, changed the slope of some interior stairs, and designed a new cabinet in one of the medical bays.
He turned toward the soft pad of Erika’s feet behind him. Her eyes were wide and her mouth drawn up in a tight line.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Captain Hunter resigned.”
The implications washed through him in waves. Erika would be trapped here—she wouldn’t be able to leave John Glenn while on duty. Erika was now High Council. She ranked him. She ranked everyone on the ship. He loved her, and she was getting her dream. He turned around and gathered her in his arms. “Congratulations.”
Erika melted into him, and he felt tightness falling away from her muscles. “I was afraid you’d hate it,” she whispered.
“I hate it,” Gabriel said.
“He’s . . . he said he’s stepping down to go to Selene. To work with you.”
The captain had always been interested in Selene—but content to keep his distance. “Did he say why?”
“No, but he and Liren aren’t talking to each other.”
Gabriel grimaced.
Erika spoke his fears. “We’re so close. Tens of thousands of years’ work completed, and only a few decades to go. We can’t afford a fight now. We have to stay unified; stay with the original plan.”
“You have the power to affect that now,” he whispered.
She shuddered in his arms, then stiffened and started to pull away. “I . . . I have to go. I just wanted to tell you. Clare and Liren want to brief me on the plans for Clarke Base.”
He pulled her in tighter, held her until she yielded into his arms. “Stay—just a few moments. Please.”
She made a little strangled sound in her throat and her arms tightened around him. He held her, his cheek on the top of her head, saying nothing.
CHAPTER 43
HISTORY CLASS
ALI CONSCRIPTED RACHEL into helping with the newly warmed. A hundred Earth Born, most being brought back to a completely unexpected life. Rachel heard Ali tell them the story over and over. After the first day, Rachel talked to Astronaut until she believed she understood the story. She learned to tell it herself, because Ali couldn’t be everywhere at once.
They warmed ten at a time. A full day was needed to catch them up. The reawakened Earth Born had to hear something of why they weren’t where they’d expected—
John Glenn’s interstellar ramjet had failed.
The vast carrier ship had to make for a star in its range, crippled, bathed in gamma rays, moving at less than a tenth of light-speed. Space was relatively empty at that speed. Erika found a sun that at least had planets. They’d used most of their antimatter and all of their rest mass, where they had expected to use pinches of antimatter and great gulps of interstellar hydrogen.
John Glenn sent warning. The second carrier throttled back. The third was delayed in launch, redesigned. Both had gone on to Ymir. John Glenn remained alone, marooned in space and time—
Each morning when Rachel and Ali arrived, Colonists—Earth Born—waited nearly awake, some already opening their eyes. Med techs moved quietly around the beds, handing the Colonists off one by one to Ali. Usually Rachel stayed with Ali, running errands, but yesterday and the day before so many people were waking at once that Ali let Rachel tell the story twice.
Rachel followed Ali down the corridor to Medical. It was the fifth day she’d helped, the fifth day since she’d seen Ali in Treesa’s shed and watched High Council argue. Beth was scheduled to wake today.
Corridors were filled with people warmed the day before, or the day before that, but not yet released from Medical. Rachel paid scant attention to hubbub. She imagined Beth waking, Beth once more being able to walk and run and fly.
The first patient of the morning woke disaffected. This was an older man, a biologist. Ali and Rachel watched him sob, and sob, and sob. Rachel stayed a few feet away, watching carefully. Two days ago a disaffected woman had thrown everything she could find. Ali still had a black eye.
A med tech walked by. “The last bed’s waking.”
Ali glanced at Rachel. “You take it. I have to stay with this one until he calms down and I can ice him.” The man in the bed started to scratch at his eyes, and Ali leaned forward to grip his wrists. “Cal
l me if you need me.”
“Okay.” Rachel turned and walked quickly down the row of beds. In the last bed a woman lay slack-faced and still, not yet moving. Rachel used her new data rights and pulled up the woman’s stats. The first line read: “Kristin Henry; thirty-seven; communications tech.”
Her heart raced and her breath caught in her throat. Her mom. The woman in the bed was her mother! Rachel stepped closer. Kristin looked smaller than Rachel remembered. She had high cheekbones and a rounded chin. Reddish hair curled along the side of her neck. Asleep, she looked vulnerable, and very young. Her skin was smooth and unlined, her mouth turned down softly in a slight frown.
Rachel looked around. Ali and the disaffected patient were talking intensely, Ali’s face just inches from his. The two med techs in the room were busy by other beds. No choice but to do this alone.
Rachel looked back at her mom, feeling as if she were moving in a dream. Kristin had spent thirty-seven years warm: she was just fifteen years older than Rachel was now. In sleep, fresh from the cleansing and invigorating effects of being warmed, Kristin looked almost as young as Rachel herself.
Rachel’s hands shook hard. She gripped them tightly together over her roiling belly. Kristen Henry might wake any moment now. Had she been hurt in the flare? Why did she stay on the John Glenn? Did she remember Rachel? Did she miss her—worry about her?
Kristin slept on, her eyelids fluttering. Rachel remembered the routine. Talk to the sleeper. What to say? Her mind turned it over and over, no words coming. They never started with hard things. Dates. They told them the date. “Mom?”
No response.
“Kristen. It’s 60,295 shiptime. You’ve been cold for fourteen years.” No—that wasn’t right. “Thirty-four years. I was cold for twenty years.”
Kristin’s eyes snapped open. Rachel had forgotten how bright a green her mom’s eyes were. Rachel searched for a sign of recognition. It wasn’t there. She realized her mom would never expect her to be here. “Wake up, sleeper. There’s work to do, and we welcome your return.” Rachel had heard Ali use those words, and words like them. “Wake up. It’s time to join us.”
Her mom’s eyes fastened on Rachel. “Only thirty-four years? Are we at Ymir that fast?” Her brow furrowed. “We can’t be. They said I didn’t have to wake again until we were at Ymir. Has something happened?”
“Mom. It’s me. Rachel.”
Kristin’s eyes closed again. “I must be dreaming.”
“It’s me. It’s really me. I looked for you. I looked everywhere.”
Kristin whispered, “You can’t be here. I’m on the ship, right?” Kristin’s eyes slammed wide open and she pushed herself up on her elbows, looking around. “I am on the ship, right? Not on Selene?”
“Mom, feel the gravity. We’re both aboard John Glenn. I’m helping Ali. They’re letting me help.” Rachel reached for Kristin’s hand, took it in hers. There was no answering squeeze; Kristin let Rachel hold her hand, but she closed her eyes again, and lay back down on the bed.
Rachel had to know; she couldn’t hold back anymore. She whispered, “Mom—why did you leave me?”
Silence. Rachel spoke into it, needing an answer. “Dad and I, we waited for you. It was a year before they told us you weren’t coming back. You broke his heart—he missed you so. He used to just sit and watch out the window for you, and he kept everything you gave him.” Her voice shook, and Rachel realized the lump in her stomach was mostly anger now. She took a deep steadying breath and calmed her voice. “Another Earth Born did the same thing to him. Except Kara leaving wasn’t a surprise—she told him she was leaving before she left. He has three more kids. Justin and Jacob—twins, and Sarah.”
Rachel felt Kristin’s hand slip from hers. She kept talking, needing to tell the story. “Dad’s older than you now. Last time I was up here, he asked about you. It was one of his first questions. He wanted to know if I’d seen you.”
Kristin struggled to sit up. Rachel helped her, fluffing pillows at her back, then backed up to the wall so she stood a meter away from her mom.
“I—I’m glad to see you,” Kristin said slowly. “I don’t know how you got here—helping us. But . . . but I’m sure it’s okay. You must be doing well.” She shook her head back and forth, as if testing the connection to her neck, and took a long sip of water. “Why did they wake me up?”
Rachel glanced at the data window. “Your assignment is going to be shipside communications.” A lump rose in her throat. “You still won’t have to go to Selene. I guess . . . I guess you don’t want to.”
“Selene is such a bare place, and we worked like dogs.” Kristin looked past Rachel, as if she weren’t there. “Frank just took it! He was born on Selene, he’d never seen John Glenn—or Earth. He didn’t know how barren Selene is. Your dad didn’t need me anymore. He was raising you fine.” Kristin twisted her hair in her fingers. “When he yelled at me to come in, to get in the shelter before the flare came, I . . . I was tired of being afraid. I didn’t move fast enough to make it into the shelter. I was mad because he was yelling at me. All I could think of was that I signed up for this to get away from Sol system, not to come to someplace worse. Selene is scary and hard and barren. When the door closed and I couldn’t get in, I just sat down and waited. I hoped they’d take me back to John Glenn. They did. I was so sick I never wanted to go near Selene again. When I got better, I asked to stay cold until we get to Ymir. Certainly you can understand that. The goal is Ymir. My family is there—my own parents are cold on the Leif Eriksson.”
“Not anymore,” Rachel said.
Her mother twitched, then barked laughter.
“You didn’t think of that?”
“Of course I know that. I don’t want to be—now. Now is like living a nightmare. I want to sleep away this place and this time and wake on Ymir.”
Her mom had gotten better before she asked to stay on John Glenn? She didn’t have to stay? She just wanted to stay?
“So you stayed here because you missed your family?” Rachel couldn’t let that go. “Aren’t I family?”
Kristin didn’t answer.
A high sound chirped from her wrist, followed by a throaty frog’s croak. It was an alert from Ysabet to signal Rachel that Beth was about to wake. But she couldn’t leave—not yet.
Rachel thought about Treesa, and how she had talked of a fiancé” on another ship. Of her own losses. She said, “You know, you have to go on. They froze me—for twenty years—and I hated it. It wasn’t my choice. I got over it—I’m doing what I can for Selene, and for my family and friends there. But you . . . just . . . left us?”
Kristin shook her head. “If I had stayed on Selene, I would be getting old now. Council didn’t want us to stay anyway. They wanted us to have kids and come back. I was following orders. Ymir . . . Ymir is my . . . destiny. You can’t possibly understand.”
“You’ve got that right.”
“I’m sorry for that,” Kristin said.
The frog croak sounded from Rachel’s wrist pad again. She had to be there for Beth. “Mom? There’s something I have to do, and I can’t change it. I can’t miss it. I made a promise to a friend of mine—you see, she got hurt, and Council brought us here because of it, and I promised her I’d be with her when she wakes up.”
Kristin looked down at her fingers, flexing them carefully. She nodded, keeping her face turned toward her hands.
Rachel had other things to ask, but they all stuck in her throat, too small to say. Finally, she said, “Dad was yelling for you, not at you. I was there. I spent a long time looking for you. Even here. And now I have no idea why.”
Rachel didn’t let herself look back as she left to see her friend.
CHAPTER 44
SEA OF REFUGE
GABRIEL, ERIKA, AND Ali sat in one of the small galleys drinking coffee and eating grapes and bananas after a run. They were still slick with sweat and smelled of exercise.
The door swung open, and Treesa walked into the
room. Gabriel hadn’t seen her outside the garden for years. He blinked. She looked as old as Captain Hunter. Ex-captain Hunter.
“Good afternoon,” Treesa said. She dispensed a bulb of coffee casually, as if she visited the galley every day. She sat, ignoring Erika and Ali, and looked at Gabriel. “I’ve just come from Medical. I’ve gotten clearance and permission to join you in the Refuge project.”
Treesa was Council. His peer. She was also disaffected.
Wasn’t she? What had changed? She looked neater than he’d ever seen her. “What can you do?”
“I’m a communications officer. I can help you run communications at Clarke Base, and besides, I’ve been helping in the garden for a long time. Maybe Ali can use my help as well.” She smiled at Ali, looking for all the world like a doting grandmother.
Ali returned the smile. “Why sure, Treesa, I could use help. I plan to design a fish habitat at Erika’s Folly and the Hammered Sea.”
Treesa looked pleased. “You mean the Sea of Refuge?”
“Huh?” Gabriel grunted.
“Well, isn’t it the Sea of Refuge now? You’re putting Refuge there, right? It seems a bit—more—gentle.”
Ali grinned. “Hey, that’s a great idea! And sure, come on down.” She glanced over at Gabriel, saying, “We’ve been hoping more Council would want to go to Selene.”
Gabriel gave up. People were always the hardest part of a project. “It will be nice to have you.” Just what he needed, a Council member he had to watch closely for crazy behavior.
Treesa drained her coffee bulb, and headed for the door.
“Be ready to leave in a week,” Gabriel said to Treesa’s retreating back.
CHAPTER 45
PICNIC
BETH COULD WALK. She wobbled a little. The nerves were woven in a new pattern, and she was still learning it. It had only been two days, and already Beth could stay up on her healing legs for a whole hour.