To speak of the future in terms of individuals was ludicrous at best, but onners gave a glimmer of hope for the line, indeed for the continued presence of humanity on Paz. Niki's family was a good example of the fragility of life on Paz. Three brothers and two sisters had bone markers out by the gardens, and they'd all termed too young to produce onners. That left Niki, and that was what his father was concerned about. Maybe he wouldn't be so lucky this year ... and that would end their line.
From Niki's reading, The Book of the Law was emphatic on the issue and stressed the importance of multiple onners. The more, the better, but it was never made a regulation. The Council had passed laws on the matter but they were softened by economics in individual cases. The Council mandated a minimum of three and established commercial mating programs as a means of simultaneously easing the burden and ensuring a quality yield—and the advent of the onners houses had solved the long-term care problem. Real pairing, like his mother and father, was tolerated only because it had been a practice of the Fathers. But it was considered the least acceptable method for quantity and quality.
During the Days of Disturbance, everyone's life was uncertain. Each year the end of life was governed by the random results of forces to which Paz was subjected. With Niki, the Delta seed lot faced extinction. Only one of the Delta seeds—Delta three, two eighty-one—had survived the initial landing on Paz. That meant Niki's Ancient had produced a single Delta line, and he was the end of the line from which his father had come. When his father died, Niki would be unique to his family line—the only Kaznov Delta on the planet of Paz. There were other Deltas, to be sure, and Niki was certain there were probably thousands of splinters, maybe even some untrac mixes, but there was only one direct-line descendant of the Kaznov connection to the Ancient who remained, and that was Niki. Now he understood. Without onners, the Kaznov family would be gone—off the record—as well as any direct-line descendant to the Ancient.
Knowing your Ancient was important. It had been specifically defined in the Book of the Law that the Fathers had left for them and, because of that, all mating was controlled by a knowledge of one's seed lot number ... their designator. Niki wondered about the reasons for that and concluded it had something to do with the genetic makeup of the population, but he could find no reference in the Ancient Record to explain it adequately.
“Look, Papa,” he said, half choking in the stale air. “I have a problem with pairing, that's all. The time and dedication required is too much for what I need to do with my life. That's why I've been thinking about commercials and onners houses."
His father's expression spoke of a mixture of relief and uncertainty. He was of the notion that there was something terribly wrong with the commercial mating programs and was vehemently opposed to the whole idea. He had said more than a few times that he felt it ripped the humanness out of having onners and that, in spite of the visitation provision, the onners became the property of the government—a decidedly unnatural condition. Niki thought he had better explain.
“Papa, I know what you think of commercials, and I think I agree ... more or less. I've been with you and Mama all my life, and I know how traditional pairing works. I think it's wonderful how you two live, but I have lots of things I want to do ... must do with my life. Fishing's been good, so I have the means to pay a commercial—or two if I shop around—and contract an onners house, but I don't have the time to devote to a pairing. Anyway, I guess my answer is, yes, there will be onners for our lot, the Kaznov family will continue ... just as soon as I have the time.” He told it as true as he knew how, and all he could hope for was that his father would understand and accept his reasoning.
“Hmm,” his father said as he worked his way up to as vertical a position as he could manage in the duct. “I think I have an idea of what it is you're trying to tell me, Niki. Hand me that spanner over there by the pipe, son."
Niki picked up the tool and handed it to his father. Was there acceptance in his eyes? It was hard to tell in the poor light.
“Thanks,” his father said and started out of the duct. “Oh, and Niki ... it's all right, son. Just wanted to be sure you'd thought about the family line. Try to find the time soon, eh? Sure don't like those commercials, though—less, their agents. Remind me of bloodworms looking for another meal. There's something unnatural about that whole business, you know ... but you will do as you will do, eh, Niki?"
Niki stood in the heavy, clammy air, smelling heady of last year's activities, and watched the silhouette of his father walking slightly hunched, partly to clear the low opening at the end of the duct, partly for his cargo of years as Sochi's chief shell-mason. He'd said it true ... he didn't have enough years left to him. Niki bit his lip. He was right about Niki, too. Niki would do whatever he thought best. He had always been like that, and he felt he was sure he didn't fit into Pazian society ... at least not Sochi's version of it. He had no experience with the world away from Nurusha. He was, for whatever reason, different. The thought that he should leave returned like a small voice in the back of his head telling him to go, that time was passing and something needed to be done—and done soon. What needed doing and why was time so critical?
No one slept much in Sochi that night, and morning came all too soon. Especially for Niki. The meeting of the Operators was scheduled for early morning, and that meant Niki had to eat fast ... something he loathed. He liked to savor his food, to sip his massak slowly so the flavor worked its way into his nostrils as well as his mouth. He was forced to forego that luxury today.
Gulping down the last of his massak, he wiped up the drops that had landed on the table during the last of the increasing number of temblors and pushed himself away.
“Thanks, Mama. That was good."
“And how would you know? None of it stayed in your mouth long enough to taste."
“You're right, but I have to hurry. The Operators are meeting in—"
“I know, Niki. I know. Never mind, you go ahead. You don't want to be late."
“No, that I don't. I heard Astro was requiring more Operators on the surface this year. I guess that's what the meeting's about.” He picked up the bundle his mother had put together for him the night before and tucked it under his arm.
“Are you ready to go under?"
“Oh, Niki, I'm never ready. You know that. According to your father, I'm the least capable Neather in Sochi ... maybe on all of Paz. He's always asking me if I've forgotten anything. You know why he asks me that, Niki?"
Niki knew she was going to answer her own question—it was her way—so he waited for her to finish.
“It's because he can't remember anything, that's why. He thinks if he asks me often enough I'll believe I had a lapse of memory and feel responsible for the things he forgets."
They knew it to be true and shared a good laugh.
“I have to go now, Mama. I've drawn the first two days, so I won't see you before we seal the shelters,” he said softly and kissed her on the forehead. “See you in three days. Tell Papa I wished him well?"
“I will, Niki. You be careful up there.” She turned back to her packing to hide the annual tears streaking her cheeks. She cried every year when Niki went to his job on the surface. He didn't look back, he never looked back.
Everyone was living under the pressure of heightened tension this year, and the reports from the Institute of Pazokinetics that the plates were shifting earlier and farther than at any time in recorded history didn't help much. Most of the people of Paz were housed in subsurface shelters during the Days of Disturbance, so increased seismic and volcanic activity was a major concern as large numbers were lost when those shelters collapsed or, in some cases, flooded with lava or hot mud. The potential for loss of life was terrifying. The job of the Operators was to monitor conditions, provide early warning for those housed in the shelters, and coordinate evacuation if that became necessary.
Sochi was to be watched over by twelve Operators, twice the ordinary number. As usual,
Niki had applied for double duty and, as usual, it had been approved. Though the people of Sochi considered Niki to be a rather strange person, one who didn't act or think like anyone else, they knew him to be the most conscientious Operator the community had ever had. They felt more secure knowing he was on the surface protecting them from the horrors of Perigamia, while Niki delighted in the knowledge that he would not be burrowing like a shagrat.
* * *
Chapter III
Things were happening. Each new vibration told her something. After years of simulated launches, each clank, click, whine, and hum added to her feel of the ship.
Rammix is making it come alive. No more simulations, Alex. This is no drill.
Another switch cycled yellow.
Oh God.
“I thought that, after all the time I've had to prepare for this, I knew what I was going to say and exactly how I would say it. Now, sitting here, listening to my ship come to life ... well, it's just ... gone. I mean, what can I possibly say to you? You, whose ancestors slept through the better part of a millennium of human agony, defeat, struggle, triumph, and rebirth."
Even with the war still going on, rebirth is at least reasonably accurate.
“You, who have never known Earth, the mother of us all. The total of your living experience and your knowledge of who and what you are comes from whatever the colonizing team has given you. What, after nearly four hundred years on a planet that may be, for all we know, completely alien and inhospitable to us—to natural humans—what do you remember? Are you still recognizably human? I don't know. I've often wondered how much the gene mechanics changed you to make your survival possible. When we ... if we arrive, will we know you ... or you us?"
Oh, what the hell am I talking about? I don't even know if they will understand a single word of what I'm stumbling around trying to say. Did they retain the Commonspeak? Are they even there? Maybe the signals we heard were their dying gasps—electronic death throes heard across a hundred and thirty light years. Too bad the entire code wasn't in the records—maybe we could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble.
The electronic equivalent of a gentle chime called her attention to the panel. The final bank of operational system switches on the console had cycled yellow, and the first to turn green showed to her right. Rammix was traveling through the systems, methodically readying Hermes for the long push to Gamma Volantis. Checking, rechecking, then cycling up. When the whole of the lower panel showed a solid shallow-water green and Rammix was satisfied that everything was in order, there would be a pause; a pause for her to confirm before she issued the order to commit and gave Rammix the station-keeping override codes. Time for her to pull the trigger, as Lavan had put it.
She could sense the artificial sun in the bowels of Hermes, suspended in its magnetic gut, beginning to shine, driving heavy particles toward the open end of the guide field tube, where the laser ring would blast them into pure energy. Hermes would begin to move out of the solar system. Imperceptible at first, then, before you had a chance to swallow your terror, the exponential nature of that movement would make itself known.
Oh god.
She returned to her recording. Anything to avoid dwelling on the activities that were taking place in the ship's viscera. She felt the helpless-little-girl within her creeping to the fore. The small one she'd left behind after her father's death, when there was no one to shield her from her mother's centerless wrath.
Oh, please, leave me alone.
“I suppose the best thing to do is for me to try to keep this as simple as I can. If you have the technology to reach us and extract this from the Rammix, then you should be able to understand, or at least understand enough to make sense of it. So, let's start over. I'll do the best I can to provide details where possible. Not all the records survived the Dark Years, and the wars that followed didn't help much, so I can't tell you everything. Oh, for your information, this crystal is linear and whatever comes out is what we'll have to live with—well, you'll have to live with it.
“My name is Alexandra Guzman-Pax. My friends call me Alex. You'll find my body in compartment A-1 of the Cryopod Section located at the ... at the center segment of the ship. I was born in Sydney Complex, Sudpacifica Sector, on the planet Earth. The date of my birth was the fifth of October, 3332. I tell you that because, as efficient as all this has been, such information is not included in the ship's records.
“This recording is a tradition. All Lead Officers leave a message before a mission is committed, in case something goes wrong—which, in our case, is a strong possibility, failure being much more likely for us than for standard in-system missions. I imagine most LO's have something deeply philosophical to say for their last words. I don't. I can only say that we tried and that I'm sorry we missed you.
“The ship's computer is programmed to home in on signals detected in your system as long as there are transmissions coming from there. Otherwise, it will choose the body most consistent with signs of life and establish an orbit there. If that is where you found it, then it worked. Trials here have been successful, but a lot can happen between one star and another."
One hell of a lot.
“The reason I'm making this recording is to give you a brief history of the things you've missed in the hope you'll better understand who and why you are. Because I don't know what the colonizers chose to give you, I'll start with what led up to the Star Migration. Please, overlook any redundancies with what you may already know.
“So, here's how it began: An infinitesimal movement in the outer planets went unnoticed, or at least no one saw fit to comment on it, until Jupiter moved out of its well-worn groove. The culprit had to be found, given a number, and a name. I suppose there was a lot of fear at the time. Anything that could cause noticeable movement in that giant could easily screw up the whole system and lead to all kinds of things ... none of them good.
“They began to look in the direction their calculations said it should be. Four months later, the director of the Mars Outer Station Observatory announced they had found the source of an intense gravitational field. That was on 11 October 2219. Its distance was two hundred and forty six AUs from Sol and closing at three hundred and eighty-seven thousand meters per second.
“The thing was tentatively listed as AFO-8 and given the name Vaunt-Courier, no doubt chosen from a list by a student who had no idea what it meant or how prophetic it would turn out to be.
"Vaunt-Courier was moving so fast it took only one day to establish its track as a straight line, securing its AFO status. As many different theories were presented about its makeup and origin as there were presenters. A probe that was sent to investigate was destroyed before providing any useful data. The scientific community agreed on only two points; Vaunt-Courier possessed enough mass to disrupt the entire system, and it was going to make a perilously close pass with the sun. Their first guess was that the distance would be on the order of fifty million kilometers on 8 December 2219.
“Its path was inclined eighty degrees from the ecliptic, and its velocity was so great that it was decided it would pose a serious threat to Mercury and there was minor concern expressed about Venus. A consensus was reached and Vaunt-Courier was declared a dead dwarf star that had been ejected when a close neighbor went nova. No one in the common run of humanity gave much of a damn about what it was or where it had come from, but they all wished it would go away.
“By the first of November, Vaunt-Courier could be seen from Earth as a disk blotting out the stars behind it. It was coming like a runaway freighter, and none of the calculations, theories, or observations had the slightest influence over Vaunt-Courier's path through our fragile little system."
The face of Lavan appeared on the in-ship com. She looked drawn, worried, her usual girlish grin replaced by a thin, pink line.
“Alex?"
“What is it, Marta? Can it wait?"
Lavan didn't like waiting for anything. “No. No, it can't wait. Can we delay the launch
?"
“The Cryopods?"
“No, I've taken care of that one. I found two suspect pumps in the control system. Can we have them replaced?"
There was no mistaking the concern in her voice, but Lavan didn't understand the systems as thoroughly as Pax did.
“What level, Marta?"
“Tertiary."
“Have Rammix set up a bypass to another line's backups in case the pumps fail. Tell Rammix to make it a random select. Anything else?” She hadn't meant to sound short.
“No, that's all.” Lavan sounded hurt.
“Okay, Marta. I'll get back to you as soon as I finish my rock, okay?"
Lavan nodded the single nod she could get away with in free-fall and managed a part of a smile. The screen went blank.
Now, where was I? Oh, yes.
"Vaunt-Courier made its pass at forty-eight point nine million kilometers on the seventh of December and plucked Mercury from the system like an overripe grape. The orbit of Venus began to decay. Mars was at approximately the same physical distance from Vaunt-Courier. Its orbit was changed radically, but stabilized into a more elliptical path, bringing it a little closer to the sun on average—a boon to the colonies. They thought the sun had been spared, but on the twenty-third the first of the coming storms was seen developing in the photosphere. They hoped it was merely a temporary reaction. On the twenty-ninth, one of the prominences reached out two point four million kilometers and activity increased sharply, CME events also became more severe and commonplace. Concern over the stability of our star mounted.
“By the middle of 2220, all EMF-based communications came essentially to an end. All lunar and orbiting station workers were returned to Earth. The Martian colonies had to be left to fend for themselves.
“Speculation was that the passing of Vaunt-Courier had created magnetic disturbances in the sun's internal structure, and it was generally accepted that it would only be a matter of time before our once friendly star would murder us all.
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