Exiled to the Stars

by Zellmann, William

  Chapter 16

  Tenthmonth 3, Year 23 A.L.

  As he spun, he was momentarily gratified to see the four sentries throw only a quick glance toward the sound before returning their attention to their assigned sector. Continuing his turn, he saw the others hurrying toward a figure writhing on the ground, screaming in agony. It was Wen Ho Jackson, and he was cradling his swollen and discolored right arm.

  "Hold him down," Chun shouted as he ran across the open area. "Don't let him hurt himself even more." Frank Wong jumped on Wen's legs, as Ron Creding pinned down his shoulders.

  "Elaine," Chun continued, "get the airship back here, fast. We need an ambulance. Michiko, I want a running record of his vital signs. No," he continued as she reached to her side, "Use Wen's tablet."

  Michiko's eyebrows rose. "Why?"

  Chun shrugged. "His tablet will be going with him on the airship. Yours will stay here. Which will be more useful to the med techs?"

  Michiko shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, Chun." She slipped Wen's tablet from beneath his body. Chun barely heard her apology. He was scanning the immediate area with his night vision glasses and praying that none of them had stepped on the evidence.

  He noticed a tiny movement alongside a fist-sized rock, and toed the rock away.

  The creature looked more like a ten-cem blob of jelly than anything else, though a blob with a cluster of long, thin spines on its top. He couldn't tell what color, if any, the creature was, because an evil-looking purple color was visibly working its way through the thing's body. When he first saw it, the spines were waving madly, but they were slowing as the purple progressed, apparently weakening and killing the creature. Finally, they stopped.

  Chun glanced at Wen's hands. Yes, he had been wearing his protective gloves. He sighed. Back to the drawing board.

  He turned to Elaine. "Airship?"

  "On the way. Carlos said three minutes." Elaine replied crisply. "I've notified Med Center, and they'll be waiting. Dr. Renko is standing by."

  Chun nodded. "Angel, get a sample case, and chivvy that thing into it. Don't touch the spines. In fact, don't touch it at all without tools. Dr. Renko and the med techs will need to see it. You'll ride back to the colony with Wen. Be sure you take his tablet and that thing."

  Angel frowned. "Why me?"

  Chun shrugged. "Because Frank and Michiko are most needed to spot and gather the samples we need. Besides, they built the sampler, and it'll probably take both of them to get it running."

  "But…" Michiko said in a shocked tone, "I thought…"

  Chun waved a dismissal. "There's nothing we can do for Wen. That's up to Doctor Renko and the med techs. But we've still got a job to do, and you and Frank are the best qualified to do it. You can keep track of Wen's progress through your tablet. Angel, you can come back once Wen's set."

  He threw a surveying look around the group, including the sentries, and raised his voice so the sentries could hear him clearly. "Wen was wearing his protective gloves. That thing stung him right through it. Do not turn over or pick up any rocks with your hands. And be on your toes. If our gloves won't protect us, what about our boots? No chances. And watch out for boojums."

  By the time the airship arrived, Wen was muttering weakly, and unable to walk. They almost threw him aboard the airship. Angel had to jump aboard the already-lifting vessel. The airship swung toward the colony even before it began gaining altitude.

  Ron, Elaine, Frank and Michiko continued to cautiously scan the ground with their night-vision goggles, brushing away rocks and pulling up native plants with knives and improvised tools, while the other four explorers and Chun stood guard with shoulder lasers. The work was slow; no one wanted to join Wen in the Med Center. Two more of the creatures Frank was calling 'jelly monsters' were found, and Chun confirmed his suspicion that they were nearly transparent. Alive, they were very hard to see, and Chun hoped they didn't have any big brothers.

  It was nearly midnight before Chun pronounced himself satisfied with the clearing they'd created. He had them spray the entire area again before allowing them to unroll their sleeping bags.

  In the morning the news was good. Wen had made it through the night, and the med techs were nearly certain he would survive. Susan Renko was delighted to hear that they had a live sample of the jelly monster to add to her growing menagerie of native nasties.

  Frank scraped away some dirt and carefully examined the hard ground beneath. Finally, he nodded. "Here, I think. I'm seeing some iron oxides and maybe some other stuff.

  Chun rolled his eyes. Finally! They'd been wandering aimlessly for hours while Frank searched for the 'perfect place'.

  "We have to find something," he'd said. "Messer Terhoe himself told me that we might only get one chance. If we don't find something, those old men on the Council might try to kill the exploration program completely.

  This came as no surprise to the others. They were well aware of the pressure on the Council to cancel the exploration project and just build up the Militia to man the Castle against the 'natives'. Only the growing shortage of raw materials permitted Ken's 'progressive' faction to continue its domination of the Council.

  "Okay," Chun said. "Same drill as camp site preparation. I want a sterile six-meter circle. Frank, Michiko, start trying to remember how to assemble that contraption. Ron, Elaine, walk guard. The rest of you, start clearing. And watch out for the boojums!"

  Groans and catcalls arose, but the groups set efficiently to work, fanning out from the center in an ever-increasing spiral. Frank and Michiko actually did have to consult a few times to remember which piece went where, to the great amusement of the others.

  Finally, though, a spindly pyramid of metal rods supported something that appeared to be a roughly cubical accretion of junk and spare parts.

  After nervously circling the machine half-a-dozen times, poking here, prying there, Frank finally stepped back and brandished the small control panel he'd built. Taking a deep breath, he mashed a button. The bottom of the machine began to slowly rotate, and a dot of blinding bluish light flared on the ground beneath. As it rotated, a mist of vaporized earth began to arise. The entire group, except for the sentries of course, hovered, becoming increasingly excited as the mist thickened and then began to dissipate.

  When the mist had thoroughly dissipated, Frank snapped off the mining laser. They had lunch while waiting for the earth to cool. "Is that it?" Tran asked. "Ten minutes of mist and it's over?"

  Frank smiled and shook his head. "Now comes the hard part. In theory, we should have a fifteen-cem diameter core of the earth for several meters down. In theory. So now, all we have to do is figure out how to remove a core of loose dirt without it falling apart."

  "There's a betting pool," Michiko explained. "Jer's betting we can't get the core out at all; that the core will just fall apart into loose dirt. In fact, if he's right, there won't be a 'core' at all. Not even a seam or hole. Ali thinks the laser will fuse the surface, and we'll just be able to lift it out; but only if we can figure out how to 'break' it out of the hole."

  "Remember," Frank picked up the explanation, "the hole, if it's there, will be only a fraction of a cem larger in diameter than the core. The smart money is betting we'll have to dig out the core with shovels."

  It seemed that Ali won the pool. Frank and Michiko dug a hole about thirty centimeters wide and deep surrounding the core, revealing a hard, fused surface, and producing sighs of relief from Frank and Michiko. When the hole was complete, Chun, the strongest of the group, simply grabbed the protruding cylinder with both hands and gave a sharp twist. He had a lot of help as he began pulling the core carefully from the hole, hand over hand.

  Finally, the core rested on the ground beside the hole, appearing covered in milky glass. Frank and Michiko hugged each other. "Five meters!" Frank exulted. "The most we'd hoped for was two!"

  By the end of the third day, their supplies were nearly exhausted, and arrangements had been made for the largest of the colon
y's three airships to pick up them, their mule, their equipment, and their samples the next day. The news about Wen was good, and spirits were high.

  Everyone was trying to get Frank to give them some hints of what they'd found, but without success. "I can barely see the samples through the fused glass," he protested. "and all I need is to tell you farbs that I think I might have seen something yellow, and have you run around the colony claiming I found a gold mine." He shook his head. "You'll just have to wait until we get back. We've got a smaller laser set up to split the sample tubes lengthwise. Once we've done that, and can start analyzing the samples, then I might have something to report."

  "Farbs?" Angel protested, "I'll have you know I am a finely-honed, highly-trained scientific mind."

  Ron shook his head sadly. "There you go again, Angel, confusing 'ego' with 'mind'. Which you're out of, by the way."

  Angel scowled in mock anger. "Says the man whose only skill is stumbling around in the wilderness. And even so, they have to send Elaine along to keep you from tripping over your own feet!"

  "So, Frank," Tran asked, "did you find gold? If so, where? I want to stake a claim!"

  Frank rolled his eyes and shook his head. "See what I mean? Total farbs!"

  The talking and joking continued far into the night. Finally, Chun growled at them that if they didn't need any sleep, he had some sentries that they could relieve, and the excited chatter began to wane.

  Significantly, the crowd that was on hand to greet them on their return consisted largely of Planetborns. Aside from a few Council members, most of the Earthborns present were parents of the explorers.

  Ken shook his head. The split between Earthborn and Planetborn was becoming more obvious and more polarized every day. Only two of the thirteen members of the Council were Planetborns, although he hoped the next election cycle would add at least two more. Both of the Planetborns were firmly in Ken's 'Progressive' faction, giving that faction a large minority of six. It was still a minority, though, and Ken and Vlad spent many a long night trying to find a way to defuse the developing split between the two groups of colonists. Despite their educational and scientific accomplishments, it was hard to get the aging Earthborns to regard the Planetborns as anything but 'youngsters' and 'kids'.

  And the very real physiological differences only exacerbated the growing alienation. The Earthborns, for example, constantly complained about the Planetborns going around nearly nude. The planetborns could actually absorb some energy directly from the sun, and luxuriated in the sun's warmth. As a result, they wore as little clothing as possible. But their near-nudity offended the mores of many of their Earthborn parents and neighbors. Then, of course, it was obvious that the Planetborns represented the future of the colony, a fact that was increasingly resented by the older Earthborns.

  Yes, they were their own children, but somehow, mothers often did not bond with crèche-born 'greenie' children in the same way they did with one they had carried to term. Like the Earthborns themselves, this problem would eventually die out, but at the moment, it was a source of much hate and discontent. There were even rumors of a secretive 'anti-greenie' hate group.

  "I don't understand it," Ken admitted. "These are our own kids we're talking about, here!"

  Helen Montero gave a sour grin. "You were never a Christian in an Islamic country," she said. "My kids don't have to worry about our neighbors; they all know my kids. And even that farb Peters's kids are in no danger from their neighbors. Familiar faces, known people.

  "But my kids have a lot to fear from Peters' neighbors, and his kids have something to fear from my neighbors. Fanaticism arises from fear of the unknown, the unfamiliar. When Peters and those other fools scream about 'them', they're actually saying 'Planetborns that we don't know personally'." She shrugged. "Our congregation didn't get beaten up by their own neighbors; they got beaten by people that didn't know them personally, as people."

  "But…but…" Ken sputtered. "That's, that's irrational!"

  Vlad nodded. "But it's true. Helen's right. The only reason we haven't had violence yet is that our community is fairly small, and everyone knows everyone else, at least by sight. But if this polarization continues, the Earthborn and the Planetborn will continue to separate. We're into the second generation, and the Planetborn are moving away from their Earthborn parents, establishing their own homes and having Planetborn children.

  "We now have Earthborn and Planetborn neighborhoods inside the wall. The Castle is actually becoming crowded in places, mostly because people either want or don't want to live near someone else."

  He shrugged. "Cesar and I fought hard to keep the colony from being separated into ethnic 'neighborhoods', and we were largely successful. But human nature is a powerful force, and before long we're going to be seeing unfamiliar faces, from other 'neighborhoods'. That's when you'll start to see actual violence." Helen nodded.

  Ken had gathered himself. "That sounds like the voices of experience, but I certainly hate to believe it of our people. We have good people, here. Nearly all of the real creeps and fools have gotten themselves killed or beaten up enough to know better than to prey on their neighbors." He sighed. "One of the few good results from the Doug Ryles debacle was the almost universal drive to protect each other, to prevent our neighbors from being victimized by thugs like Vic Tablana and Charlie Worthless. Now, only a few months later, we're facing the possibility that our people will learn to hate and victimize each other!"

  ********

  "Ah! Messer Wong!" Ken said heartily. "To what do I owe the honor of a visit from our latest hero?" He extended a hand.

  Frank shifted uncomfortably. "I'm no hero, sire," he said uncomfortably.

  "So," Ken continued, eyeing Frank's companion. He thought he recognized the woman, but didn't think they'd ever been introduced. "How goes the analysis? Have you found us a gold mine? Or maybe platinum?"

  Frank smiled self-consciously. Messer Terhoe had always been friendly and courteous to the young man, but Frank could never forget that the man was Colony Administrator, and therefore the most powerful man in the colony. "Not yet, sire. Besides, gold would be useful, but I'd much rather find bauxite. I think we might have a usable amount of iron, though."

  "Ah!" Ken nodded. "Much more valuable than gold." He looked pointedly at Frank's companion, and Frank startled. "Oh! Uh, I mean, uh, Messer Terhoe, this is Kerry Alves."

  Ken's eyebrows rose and his smile widened. "I've been looking forward to meeting you, Mistress Alves, but somehow it never happened. I'm a regular reader of your blog, of course."

  Like most of the colonists, Kerry Alves was short and brown, aside from the green tinge of the Planetborn, of course. The brown of her skin was lighter than that of the average colonist, indicating either western genes or an indoor lifestyle. In this case, it was the latter. Kerry was a writer, and author of the most popular blog on the 'net, "Kerry's Mind." She had also written two novels, and claimed to be working on a multivolume history of the colony. Her lifestyle was also apparently sedentary; she was rather pudgy, despite the fact that since blogging was not a paid profession, she had to live on only the basic subsistence provided every colonist. Her black hair was trimmed short for convenience, and her face somehow gave the appearance of homeliness, although Ken could see no single feature that created that impression.

  Kerry muttered under her breath, and Ken's brows rose again. "I'm sorry," he said, "I didn't quite get that."

  Kerry flushed, but after a long moment, she shrugged. "I said, 'I've seen no signs of it'," she supplied. She cringed slightly, as if expecting an explosion.

  What she got was a chuckle and a shake of the white-maned head. "I'm afraid I'm not a dictator, and I don't work in a vacuum. Nor can I consider only one point of view. But I depend on your blog to make certain I don't lose sight of the Planetborn perspective on issues. One of my biggest regrets is my lack of contacts in the Planetborn community." He sighed. "Another is that there is such a thing as a 'Planetborn comm
unity'. We have two Planetborn Councilors, of course, but they must walk a fine line; many of their constituents are Earthborn.

  "So," he continued, "what can I do for Crashlanding's foremost geologist and foremost writer?"

  Frank and Kerry exchanged glances, and Frank nodded encouragingly. After a moment, Kerry shrugged. "I want to start a newsie," she said. Then she continued in a breathless rush, "I mean a real newsie, like on the EarthNet, but one that's free and independent of the government."

  Ken grinned. "But with plenty of editorializing, I assume," he said, and Kerry flushed.

  "Actually," Ken continued, "I've been hoping for something like this. A free press can be a powerful force for unity." His grin faded. "Of course, it can also be powerfully divisive." Silence fell, and grew long enough to begin becoming uncomfortable. Ken was obviously lost in thought.

  Finally he straightened. "I'll need to think about this. Mistress Alves, could you come see me tomorrow about this time? We'll discuss it further, and I'll give you my decision at that time. Francisco, thank you for bringing Mistress Alves to meet me, though it's an unpleasant surprise to find that such an introduction was necessary. I thought I was quite accessible and approachable." He shrugged, and then rose. "Oh, well, I suppose I'll need to find a way to get out more." He shook their hands as he ushered them out.

  The next day, Kerry returned alone, as Ken expected. Introductions were over; now they would get down to business.

  "Welcome, Mistress Alves," he began, as he motioned her to a chair.

  "Kerry, please," she replied.

  He nodded. "And I'm Ken, of course. All right," he began. "I'm a great believer in the value of a free press. But it must also be a responsible press. I've had enough experience with tabloid and yellow journalism to require some assurances."

  Kerry smiled. "And I've studied enough journalism to understand those terms," she said. "But I've also studied enough to be suspicious when politicians start demanding assurances."

  Ken straightened. "Let's understand each other, Kerry. We share certain goals, I think, but our interests and motives only overlap; they are similar, but not identical.