So after his second tour of duty, he decided not to return to the carnage. He’d had enough of war and decided to settle for a quiet life in his home town in northern Missouri. He settled into his old room in his parents’ house, planning to save enough money to buy his own apartment. He figured, with no financial obligations, he’d have saved enough by the end of the year. But life never goes as planned. Less than three months after his return, one morning while driving his car to work, he accidentally ended up in the middle of a firefight between local law enforcement and suspected terrorists. When the last officer fell, Nick snatched the weapon from the dying man and pursued the terrorists. He shot and killed one, and wounded another. The last of them managed to escape, but not before he’d dropped his backpack in the middle of the street. When police and S.W.A.T. entered the scene, they found Nick with the open backpack on the ground and the disarmed bomb right next to it.
Nick received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Valor and became the local hero. His actions had prevented a bloody attack on a local mall, and many innocent lives were saved. When the third man was finally caught a few weeks later, Nick provided the testimony that connected the terrorist to the scene of the crime.
Six months later, a man in a suit appeared at the door of his parents’ house, and half an hour later, Nick left his home for good, on his way to a remote part of Arizona. He never got to say goodbye.
That’s the biggest regret of my life, he thought, staring into darkness, alone with his thoughts. He’d lost good friends in combat, both in North Africa and here, and he had found a way to live with that. But leaving his parents without a word, not even a note, was something that haunted him still. It seemed a lifetime ago, and he sometimes wondered why he had been given the chance to come to Aurora, to live while other, better men and women died. Then, when he thought back, he knew. The Exodus project needed people of all kinds of professions, and he was a soldier. Maybe not on duty at the time, but that didn’t change who he was. And his actions in the terrorist attack hadn’t gone unnoticed. Someone, somewhere, who had something to say about who got picked and who didn’t, had chosen him. He would never know who that person was, but he knew he should be eternally grateful.
However, his chances of living were slim at the moment. He’d seen the attackers kill Sarge, Rob, and even Pete, unarmed and surrendering. Nick was the only one left, and once they figured he had nothing more to tell them, he would be dead, too, for sure. He didn’t remember coming here, but he did remember them stripping off his clothes, everything but the facemask, before injecting something into his arm. Darkness had come quickly. When he awoke, he was here, in some kind of prison cell. He guessed it had to be some kind of modular shelter, airtight, probably completely hidden from view both from the ground and from space.
The first time he’d heard their voices, he’d been nearly unconscious, and the memory was blurred. Later though, he’d concentrated on listening for clues, trying to gain as much information as possible from his captors. It wasn’t easy; only one of them spoke any English, heavily accented. An officer, apparently, with a smile that never reached his eyes and a hideous scar across his face. He’d only spoken to Nick twice, but each time, he’d behaved like a ranking officer. More important, the other captors clearly deferred to his every command.
All his captors had distinct Asian features, and Nick thought they had to be Chinese. He was aware that with his limited knowledge of Asian cultures, they could easily be Japanese or Korean, or another East Asian nationality, but he figured they had to be Chinese for two reasons. First, only two East Asian entities would have been able to make it out into outer space. That ruled out everyone else but the Chinese and the Japanese and Korean joint agency. Second, the Koreans were extremely anti-authoritarian, the result of their entire population having nearly perished by the effects of almost a century of harsh dictatorship. They would never have accepted a system such as these people seemed to have on board their ship. The Japanese might, though, but they depended too heavily on the Koreans, at least back in the twenty-first century, to deviate much from their egalitarian, flat-structure thinking. With the Chinese, he could easily imagine they would embrace a hive-system in a tight situation, since it had worked for them before. You could say a lot about the old Chinese communist regime, but when it finally fell, it was because of economics, not political pressure. From what he remembered, the opposition in communist China had been scattered and powerless. No, the transition from communism to a version of democracy was a deliberate act by the powers that be. Instead of holding on to political power while the pressure of increasingly competitive new economies such as India or Brazil caused the Chinese economy to crash, they had decided to let the old system die, while they retained their privileges through economic means.
So, being captured by a Chinese invasion force more than forty light-years away from Earth left him with a big question: If the Chinese had managed to send a starship into space, how many other starships were there? How many other arks had left Earth in the final years, to settle new worlds? And what did it mean to his people, here on Aurora?
Maria solis
Maria jumped ashore, laughing at the shenanigans of a couple of dragon fish nearby. The creatures had scared her at first, but after a few trips up and down the Arizona, she had realized the man-sized creatures were completely harmless. Lately, she had even noticed they would perform what could only be described as some sort of mating game that involved teasing each other until the last moment, when they would abruptly dive down, leaving the other alone on the surface, obviously frustrated. She couldn’t help thinking of her own condition. She was still agile, though the past few weeks had taken their toll. She touched her belly. It wasn’t visible yet, and it wasn’t as if she felt it kick or anything, but she felt… different. Thankfully, the morning sickness had finally subsided. Doc Bowers had given her some pills that he assured her were completely harmless, which took away the worst of it. She still felt it, slightly, every morning, but it wasn’t overwhelming anymore. So a few days ago, she’d been able to get on the boat with Kim and head north. The camp by the river was slowly growing as a trading post between the Stronghold and the fishing village that was being established on the north shore. So far, they had managed to keep a tight lid on the existence of the Akhab, but she knew it wouldn’t last. And when that happened, many more would come to see. She had already talked to Kenneth about it, and they both agreed there had to be some restrictions in order to protect the Akhab from their own benevolence.
She hadn’t told her mother about the baby yet, and she figured Thomas had a right to be the first to know. But how would she tell him that their one night together had resulted in her being pregnant? Her feelings for him had only strengthened, but what if he didn’t feel the same way? Every time he left, she was terrified he would not return. She was aware of the risks he took, but she had no doubt he didn’t tell her everything. How would the distraction affect him?
Walking toward the cave, she thought of her mother. She would be expecting her by now. Karin Svensson would also be there; the Swedish astronomer had set up a crude observatory near the cave and had spent more time with the Akhab than anyone else.
After a few minutes, Maria reached the cave’s entrance. One of the Akhab waved at her as she arrived. She smiled broadly and waved back. The Akhab were always hospitable and friendly, and by now, every one of them seemed to know her. She entered the tunnel and walked until she reached the cavern covered in murals.
“Maria!” her mother exclaimed, and Maria smiled. They hugged, and Isabella held her out at an arm’s length and cocked her head, peering at her like only a mother would.
“You look well,” Isabella said. Maria felt her cheeks warm, but just smiled back at her mother. After being apart since Maria’s hasty departure from Fort Andrews, she felt their bond had only strengthened. After her father had died, and with Thomas always gone, on some mission or another, she had felt completely alone. She had mi
ssed her mother then, and she worried that her father’s death would make her mother do something stupid. She had never expected her mother to return from depression and seclusion the way she had, stronger than ever, and full of life.
Isabella had already turned to walk back into the cave, and Maria took a few quick steps to catch up with her.
“I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the Akhab and their way of speaking,” Isabella began. “Those I have spoken to are learning so fast, I’ve never seen anything like it.” They passed one Akhab that spoke a few words—or rather, something Maria thought were words—and Isabella nodded at him and smiled. The Akhab moved on, wagging along as he or she went about his or her business. Maria had a hard time distinguishing between the males and females, although she could sometimes tell from their voices.
“I actually think I can understand quite a bit of their language now,” her mother said. “Speaking it though…” She shook her head. “Some of their sounds are completely impossible for a human to make. But here’s the trick—substitution. I can substitute some of their special sounds, as I like to call them, with human sounds. As long as I do it consistently, they seem to understand. It’s almost as if they are trained in communicating with us. Or with non-Akhab, at least.” Maria chuckled. She had spent enough time with the Akhab not to be surprised by their amazing ability to learn human language. They reached the entrance to the deeper cave and saw Jujjj coming toward them.
“I thought I was adept at learning languages,” Isabella said, her face breaking up in a wide grin. “But my abilities are nothing! You should hear Jujjj. Wait, there’s no way to tell you…” She said a few strange words—or sounds rather.
“It is a pleaser to met you again, Mariaa son, sorree, Mariaa daughteer by Isabellaa,” he said, and extended his hand.
Maria was stunned.
Chapter 10
Kenneth taylor
“So, he isn’t talking,” Kenneth said to the others, as he turned down the volume on the comm speaker. It now was possible, to a certain extent, to have a basic conversation through the comms, but it took a lot of repetition and interpretation, and it was easy to get something wrong. He had made Thomas repeat the message several times, to be absolutely certain. So, at last, they knew their enemy was human. “He told me the prisoner was pretty vocal at first, but once he realized we had people who spoke his language, he shut up. Miss Shue, whose parents were Chinese refugees, said he rambled on about some kind of mother ship and taking over this world for the glory of the Chinzhoi Empire. Other than that, it was mostly racist nonsense or plain cursing.”
Tina and Kenneth caught each other’s eye. Even though neither of them said anything, Kenneth saw that Tina had come to the same conclusion he had. Someone knew more than they had let on. He turned toward their guest from Dehlia and raised an eyebrow, just slightly. Rajiv cleared his throat, and the others turned toward him. They had put this off for too long, but the hints the ambassador had given on the occasions they had touched upon the subject had made Kenneth suspect that things weren't as simple as they first had thought. Rajiv seemed to understand it was time, as well, and the ambassador sighed heavily before he finally spoke.
“There were several other nations and even a few private entities that left Earth in the years prior to the great impact.” Kenneth urged him on. He had expected as much.
“Yes, we knew there were others. The information flow was minimal though. You weren’t born then, Mr. Singh, but the fact is that no one trusted each other back then. We knew that you Indians were doing something, and there were rumors about both the Brazilians and the Chinese…” Rajiv nodded.
“Yes, it was a less cooperative environment than it should have been. Well first off, the Brazilian mission failed utterly. When rebellion swept the entire South American continent less than a year before launch, the mission was effectively aborted. Their ship was never finished because all the people working on it either fled from the fighting or were killed in the turmoil. A small number of the more resourceful scientists and engineers managed to flee the continent to join with other efforts elsewhere. India even took a few of them in, and there are descendants of the Brazilian scientists and engineers alive today, mostly on Dehlia itself.
“The Chinese chose a very different path, along with their Russian and Indonesian partners. They had a high level of technology, but they never did put much faith in cryo tech, so instead, they spent their time and resources building bigger ships with better life support. In essence, they built great arks, generation ships. India and China had never been close—I believe it has to do with our history—so not much information was shared. But India had a vast intelligence network back on Earth, so we were probably the best informed among the great nations. And our sources managed to get a lot more details than the Chinese intended.
“Their destination was the Ashan system, twenty-six light-years away from Earth. Ashan lies about seventeen light-years away from Aurora, sixteen from Dehlia. Four arks carrying approximately 1000 passengers each left Earth’s orbit in 2084, just six months before Devastator struck. Dangerously late, with the gravitational irregularities in the final year, yet they managed to pull it off. From what we can tell, their arks must have made the slingshot around the sun and then later used Nemesis for a second slingshot. They arrived at the planet Chinzhou in the Ashan system almost a century later, and by that time, there must have been more than 20,000 people on board, three generations still alive, all of them born on board.
“Now, and this is important, when the options of star flight were discussed back on Earth, our mission planners came to the conclusion that there were serious issues involved with generation ships, especially psychological. The main one was that the shared knowledge of our home world would gradually weaken with every generation, and that the ones arriving in their new world would have entirely different concepts and frames of reference than the ones leaving Earth. Our intel more than suggests that this happened to the Chinese-led effort.
“After finally having thrown off the yoke of communism and embracing a degree of democracy, the starfarers from the new China and their partners could have had the best starting point of all. With 20,000 people, they would have had a great start, and they would have been valuable partners in an interstellar community of humans. Instead, something terrible happened. At some point, probably in the second or third generation, something triggered a shift, and they reverted back to totalitarianism. We don’t have many details, as we have never had official channels open with them, but what we know is this. Despite the changes, the arks’ captains managed to keep it together, enough so that all four arrived safely at their destination. When they arrived at Chinzhou, though, they were completely different from when they left Earth. Their society on Chinzhou is an extremely totalitarian, militaristic one, in which babies are being fostered by the government and trained from young age in military disciplines and tested for loyalty and obedience. Their government has complete control of every man, woman, and child, from birth to the grave, and everyone works for the common good.” That last comment was said with a snarl.
“I guess Chinzhou itself has changed them, as well,” Rajiv continued. Kenneth cocked his head, eager to hear more, and he noticed Tina also seemed captivated by the Dehlian’s tale.
“You see, what they found was an extremely harsh environment, a barren planet with an inhospitable atmosphere and temperatures varying between boiling hot and freezing cold in one day. So the first thing they did was establish underground shelters. These later grew into entire cities deep beneath the surface. Still, they managed to colonize one of Chinzhou’s moons, and from there, they have been probing their stellar vicinity for decades, searching for a better place to live.” Rajiv sighed.
“None of us can fathom what it must have been like spending an entire life inside a tin can, never having seen anything but the interior of the starship, surrounded only by stars from birth to death. Being crammed together, tighter and tighte
r, flying through space from the day you are born until the day you eventually die; what does it do to a human mind? Recycling your dead to feed hydroponic farms, drinking recycled water, while population growth put a steadily increasing strain on resources. In the end, their resource situation must have been desperate. Our intel suggests that cannibalism was common on at least one of the arks, although we’ve seen no confirmed instances after they reached Chinzhou.” Kenneth shuddered. Everything Rajiv said made sense. He was suddenly glad the Exodus had been fitted with cryo cells to let them sleep through most of the journey.
“And then you arrive, to find your new world to be… another prison or whatever…” Tina almost whispered.
“If that intel is correct, it only seems reasonable that the sort of desperation that might trigger such acts would also do something to their society as a whole,” Kenneth said. Rajiv nodded.
“Yes, and what we have long feared is the day they decide to venture out to other worlds, as well. That is why we have focused so much on building new colonies, expanding our reach through small starship intelligence missions, and of course, a strong defense, should the day come that such a thing becomes necessary. We had hoped it would still be a long time until that happened, because they seemed to be making slow progress. Obviously, our sources must be wrong. It could be our information is outdated, which is no surprise, really, when you consider the distances and communication difficulties. We did, however, expect them to be stuck within the Ashan system for generations yet.”
Genesis (The Exodus Trilogy) Page 9