Colonial Prime_Humanity

by Kevin L. Nielsen

  This particular section of the gardens would be planted with foodstuffs to supplement the supplies they already had. Other sections of the gardens, which almost literally stretched the entire length of a deck of the ship, would be converted to house grains and the like for the small number of livestock they had aboard ship as well.

  “You do quick work.”

  Jaelyn jumped and nearly dropped the spade he’d been holding. He spun to see Dr. Martin suppressing a chuckle. He hadn’t heard her come in.

  “I, um…uh, thank you.” Jaelyn licked his lips and attempted to still his thundering heart. His hands twisted on the shovel’s metal haft, as if he were somehow attempting to strangle the thing.

  Dr. Martin smiled and shook her head. Jaelyn found himself returning the smile. She gestured for him to follow her. “Come on, help me load the seed sprayer and we’ll get these fields planted.”

  “How’d the meeting go?”

  Dr. Martin shrugged a single shoulder. Jaelyn hadn’t really ever seen the gesture from the rear before. It made him have to suppress a small laugh. “It went the way meetings about forty-five year journeys through space normally go, I expect. Lots about co-fraternization, duty to populate the new planet with humanity, population controls while still aboard ship, etc. Boring stuff and the like.”

  “Seems interesting to me.”

  Dr. Martin snorted, stopping at a section of wall and pressing several buttons there. A massive section of the wall slid back, revealing a deep storage chamber filled to bursting with sacks and sacks of seed.

  “Captain’s son,” she said, stepping into the room.

  “Can’t help who you’re born to.”

  Dr. Martin snorted. She seemed to do that a lot. “You don’t have to act like it, though.”

  Jaelyn didn’t say anything. He was reasonably sure she was joking, but either way, she was probably right.

  “They did discuss one thing I found rather interesting,” Dr. Martin continued, gesturing for him to pick up one of the large sacks. “Something that concerned you, actually.”

  Jaelyn grunted with the effort of lifting one of the sacks onto his shoulder. It smelled musty and earthy, which wasn’t altogether unpleasant.

  “Yeah? What?”

  “I’m not sure I should tell you,” Dr. Martin said. “You may not like it.”

  Jaelyn grunted again, unable to articulate much more under the weight of the sack he carried. Dr. Martin reached out and helped him lower it to the walkway next to the long field he’d just aerated.

  “I—” Jaelyn cut off as a door slid open and an angry voice preceded the entrance of a man Jaelyn recognized.

  “Alex!” Sheawn Olliard, the man from earlier, all but shouted as he strode into the room. His square-jawed, handsome face was a ruddy shade of scarlet and he glowered as he strode toward them, booted feet thumping and echoing off the metal walkway.

  “Calm yourself, Sheawn,” Dr. Martin said, holding up a hand. “Jaelyn, fetch me three more of these, will you?”

  Jaelyn nodded and headed back the way they’d come. He’d been around militant adults long enough to recognize a dismissal when he heard it. Still, his mother’s long years of – well, he’d called it paranoia at the time, but it had proven effective in the late war at least – instruction left him walking more slowly than normal and straining to hear what was being said.

  “Calm yourself, Sheawn,” Dr. Martin said in a soft voice that nonetheless carried in the metal room. “What possessed you to make such a scene?”

  “That woman. That woman. Who does she think she is? Does she not know who I am?”

  “Who you were, you mean?”

  Jaelyn reached the door to the supply room and palmed the door open. The sound of it sliding open drowned out the man’s response. Reluctantly, Jaelyn stepped into the room before he could hear anything else, grabbed a bag of seed, and hurried back out as best he could. Dr. Martin was talking when he returned.

  “I don’t care how you feel about it, that’s what you’re going to do. I didn’t spend all my personal and political favors getting you aboard this vessel to have you throw it away over your feelings.” The fierceness of Dr. Martin’s tone startled Jaelyn, though he did his best not to let it show as he brought the bag over and tossed it down on top of the first one with a grunt. The two adults had walked a little ways away, but even still, they remained silent until Jaelyn was almost back to the storage room.

  “What do you expect me to do? Sit around and knit?” Sheawn’s voice resonated with suppressed anger.

  “As our good captain put it, fraternize. This is a long trip. Many of us won’t make it all the way to the other side. It’s our duty to replace ourselves and grow our small populace. Find a girl. Settle down.”

  Jaelyn missed the man’s response as the storage room’s door opened and he stepped inside. He couldn’t help but snort a little, though. It sounded exactly like something his mother would say. Pragmatic to a fault, it was just like her to talk about procreation and their life aboard Colonial Prime in terms of duty to humanity. How hard was it to just say that people needed to be making babies like a normal society?

  He picked up another bag and slung it over his shoulder with a grunt and then headed back to the door with a slightly quicker step than he’d had before. He was, frankly, curious now. Dr. Martin and this Sheawn fellow were having an interesting conversation. He didn’t want to miss it.

  The door slid open. At the same moment, the speakers popped and an odd sound, like a whistle bouncing from one note to another and then back again, preceded a smooth male voice coming through the speakers.

  “Colonial Prime. Congratulations from the Earth United Council. You have stepped out into the great unknown, a beacon of hope, trust, community, and cooperation for all of us back here on Earth. May your journey be filled with peace and vigor. As we struggle here through our first few years as a fledgling union, we will look toward you as our example. Other colonial voyages will follow, but you are the first. Our first hope. God Speed, Colonial Prime.”

  The same whistling trill sounded again and then the speakers popped, signaling an end to the transmission. Jaelyn stood motionless in the doorway for a long moment. He vaguely recalled his mother telling him they’d still be in communication range with Earth for the first few years of their voyage. He hadn’t remembered her saying anything about their ability to send shipwide broadcasts, though. Maybe they’d just contacted her directly and she’d patched it into the ship’s speakers.

  But still, it was, well – odd. According to his mother, they were supposed to leave all ties to Earth behind. Why would they broadcast things talking about Earth and their struggles? Hadn’t leaving been hard enough without reminders?

  Someone snorted, and Jaelyn blinked, snapping out of his internal musings. The sack on his shoulder suddenly felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. He tottered forward and tossed it onto the pile and glanced over at Dr. Martin and the man called Sheawn.

  “Look toward us as their example, huh?” Sheawn was saying. “Perhaps they’ll learn a thing or two.”

  Dr. Martin blew out what could only be described as an exasperated sigh. “Off with you, Sheawn. I’ll see you at the commissary later.”

  Sheawn grunted and turned on his heel, but not before Jaelyn got a look at his expression. His face had become thoughtful, introspective. For some reason, the look made Jaelyn uneasy. He suppressed a small shiver threatening to creep up his spine.

  “Ready then, Jaelyn?” Dr. Martin asked, walking up to him with a smile. “We’re an example of hope and cooperation and all that. Let’s get this strip of earth planted, shall we?”

  Jaelyn nodded, feeling his unease lift. He let the shadow of a smile creep onto his face. “Sheawn sure does like to use you as a venting board, doesn’t he?”

  Dr. Martin raised an eyebrow, though the smile never left her weathered features. “That’s the trouble with being related, I guess. You always complain to those with whom you�
�re most comfortable. It’s rude to eavesdrop, you know.”

  Jaelyn shrugged. “I’m not deaf and he’s not quiet.”

  “Fair enough,” Dr. Martin said with a soft chuckle. “Fair enough.”

  She bent down to open one of the sacks, simultaneously pressing a button on a small remote-control type device attached to her belt. A large drone detached itself from the ceiling high above them and zipped down toward them, rotor blades spinning and keeping it aloft.

  “So,” Jaelyn said, shifting on one foot and watching Dr. Martin closely. “What was it you were saying before our loud friend came in?”

  “Hmm? Oh yes, something about your mother’s meeting. What was it again?”

  “You said it may interest me? I’m assuming it’s not about fraternizing.” Jaelyn made sure to put a funny little twist on the last word, just for fun, to see how she’d react. Older people always got so squeamish when people they deemed “children” talked about sex.

  “Nothing so banal as that,” Dr. Martin said without pause. “Ah, yes, the apprenticeship system. That was it. She’s implementing an apprenticeship system for all posts aboard ship. I think the idea is that many of us – ahem – older folk, won’t be fit to do many of the things we’d need to do when we arrive. Cross-training, is what she called it.”

  Jaelyn felt a small rush of excitement wash through him. Could she possibly mean…?

  “How would you like to be my apprentice?”

  Jaelyn grinned.

  “You handled it then?” Captain Amara asked, looking at him over steepled fingers from behind her desk.

  Nathan nodded. “That broadcast seemed to spark something in several of the passengers. Apparently, someone from the United Americas thought they were better than someone from the African Confederacy of Nation-States. Something about manual labor and motherhood, I’m not sure of the details. It escalated to a fight, but was broken up relatively quickly.”

  “You handled it, then?” Amara repeated, no more firm, no more loud.

  Nathan felt himself flush and struggled to keep the color from his cheeks. “I set them to work together scrubbing out the sewage pipes.”

  “Together?”

  “Um, yes. Something my father always used to say is that if you take two people who aren’t getting along and separate them, there’s no chance they’ll ever understand each other. Distance breeds division. Working together, they’ll at least get to know one another.”

  Captain Amara pursed her lips into not-quite a frown. “And you don’t think they’ll just break into more fighting? One would think such action would exacerbate their situation rather than rectify it.”

  “Oh, one of Holly’s security officers is there to supervise.” Nathan licked his lips and had to suppress the desire to fidget.

  “Well done, XO.” Nathan breathed out a sigh of relief, then caught himself as Captain Amara continued, a small smile playing about the set of her eyes and the corners of her lips that, somehow, made him even more uneasy. “You should be more confident in your decisions. As long as you have a justification for what you’ve done that is logical and sound, I will support it.”

  Nathan nodded. “Thank you, Captain.”

  “Amara is fine when we’re alone.”

  “Yes, Captain – Amara.”

  Captain Amara, no, just Amara, gave him a whole smile this time, and the expression made her eyes twinkle. It was, Nathan decided, a very nice smile, one, he assumed, rarely graced her features. The world – well, the ship really, but that was the width and breadth of their world now – was a far worse place for it. He shifted in the chair, glancing around Amara’s ready room as a means of reorienting his mind back to the task at hand.

  “Were there any other incidents after the broadcast?” Amara asked.

  “Nothing that escalated to violence. A few insults, some name calling. There was a fair bit of cheering and crying as well. It became much more real when they heard the Council’s voice.”

  Amara raised an eyebrow again. Nathan had always harbored a little envy of anyone who had mastered that particular ability.

  “That’s a rather strange way of referring to your father,” Amara said.

  “From a certain point of view, I suppose.” Nathan knew he likely sounded a lot harsher about it than he intended, but it was too late to change now. It was a recording, after all. Of course, his father wouldn’t have made a live broadcast. He’d been too busy for that.

  Amara gave him a level, appraising look. She’d served under his father during the war, he knew. In fact, it was during that time she’d acted upon her hunches to effectively end the war entirely. But the general was not the same man as Nathan’s father. No, the general cared about his officers far more than he ever had about his own son.

  “Well,” Amara said with just the barest hint of a frown. “I suppose you’d like to know about the rest of the information relayed in the broadcast. Various reports and the like, updates on our trajectories, etc.”

  Nathan swallowed and nodded, forcing himself not to linger on the dark thoughts that had sprung up within the shadowy recesses of his mind. “Anything interesting?”

  “The usual. A few reports of odd celestial bodies that may move across our path over the years, a half dozen letters from home.” Amara hesitated and by the way she held his gaze, he knew she was doing it for effect alone. Was she testing him? “And a small report regarding an incident that involved your father.”

  Nathan couldn’t raise an eyebrow the way Amara had, but it was obvious from the sly look she gave him that his expression still served sufficiently to share his curiosity.

  “It seems there was an attempt on his life,” Amara said, holding up her datapad and making a show of reading from it. “A group of dissidents made several assassination attempts on a number of council members. Notably your father, and the other major remaining members of what was once the Northern United Coalition.”

  Nathan blew out a long breath. Obviously, they’d failed or else Amara wouldn’t have used the word “attempts,” but having it in a report could only mean one thing, really.

  Nathan swallowed and itched under his nose with a knuckle. The dissentions back on Earth would spread here. There was no question in his mind. Despite Captain Amara’s best efforts to keep the information contained, the people here would eventually figure it out. There were ways to get messages in and out of this ship and back to Earth so long as they were within the Communication Grid. The seeds of dissent were already here, if the earlier meeting of department heads and officers was any indication.

  “Amara,” he said, giving her a pointed look, “we have to tell everyone.”

  “Out of the question. This stays here, between you and I.”

  “You know this is going to get out eventually. Wouldn’t you rather tell them all yourself and have the chance to see their reactions? See whose loyalty is still with the factions back on Earth, rather than here?”

  Amara paused, pursing her lips slightly as she thought. Nathan tried not to smile as she tapped a finger against her lips. For someone many years his senior, he couldn’t help but appreciate how attractive she could be when she let her captain’s mask fall away.

  “I can’t justify spreading information I know will cause discord and dissent among the colony. This is a colony – a one-way trip. What news they receive from Earth will be official broadcasts only. Earth is no longer our home.”

  “That’s a lovely sentiment.” Nathan kept his tone carefully neutral. “I wish it were true for all of us.”

  Amara gave him a sharp look, the pert cuteness of a moment before hardening into steel in the blink of an eye.

  “I appreciate your candor, Nathan. We are a new colony. We are one people. Nothing is going to change that as long as we hold firm to the belief, to that knowledge. It is fact.”

  Nathan nodded, not sure how to respond to the fervor in her voice. Belief was a wonderful thing, an important, motivating emotion that had more than once changed
the course of mankind’s history. Nathan’s father – despite, and perhaps because of, his many other flaws – always held that above all other things. It was a soldier’s mentality, a monochromatic picture of black and white.

  “As you command, Captain.” Nathan said with a small inclination of his head.

  Captain Amara’s lips tightened into a thin line.

  “Dismissed.”

  Jaelyn yawned and massaged the small of his back with one hand as he trudged along the corridor toward the quarters he shared with his mother. His whole body ached with the semi-pleasant pain of having worked hard all day long. Dr. Martin had worked him hard, but alongside him instead of as a demanding taskmaster. He’d honestly been surprised by her stamina. She was probably in her late fifties or early sixties and had matched him step for step the whole time. It was – well, it was surprisingly nice. He’d grown so used to working alone that he’d thought the company would be irritating at best, but it hadn’t been. Far from it, in fact.

  “Ace,” Jaelyn said, hearing the weariness in his own voice and feeling oddly proud about it. “Start the showers for me, will you? And pull up some music, too, while you’re at it. Something loud.”

  “Yes, sir.” The computer’s voice sounded from his wristband and echoed off the metal walls of the narrow corridor.

  Jaelyn made a mental note to adjust the volume later. He was simply too tired to do it now.

  “Sir?”

  Jaelyn looked down at his wristband, a habit he had yet to break. “What’s wrong, Ace?”

  “Your mother has overridden your request for shower and music.”

  Jaelyn let loose a small groan. Of course she had. It was close to 22:00 in shiptime, which was late by anyone’s estimation. He’d hoped his mother would still be busy with captainly duties with it being the first day of the voyage, but obviously, she’d made it back to their quarters ahead of him. He wouldn’t be relaxing in a shower anytime soon. He wished she’d just leave him alone, sometimes.