Elizabeth glanced up, biting her lip. “I tried it six different ways.”
Grace smiled. “Relax, Lizzie. That’s the right way. Sometimes the simple answer is the best one.” She knew Elizabeth hated to disappoint her. Nathalie’s daughter had latched on to her from an early age, becoming her apprentice in both navigation and chemistry. She’d looked up to Grace as a teacher and role model, so much so that David joked they should rename her Grace Junior.
“That’s enough for today. I need to harvest herbs for dinner tonight.”
“Do you want help?”
“Why don’t you see if your maman can use an extra pair of hands?”
Elizabeth’s attachment to her had been a sore point between Grace and Nathalie in the past, so Grace encouraged her to spend time with her mother.
Elizabeth looked down, then brightened. “Are you coming to the park?”
Everyone had a kitchen in their family home, but as a general rule they used the communal kitchen in Solar Park for evening meals. In their easy, relaxed life, people arrived at a time that suited them and prepared whatever they wished to cook that day. Then they ate, sharing their bounty.
“You bet,” Grace said. “I’m looking forward to your French cooking.”
Elizabeth nodded, green eyes shining. “I think it’s coq au vin tonight. I’ll go help Maman.”
Grace smiled as she watched her leave. Had she ever been that full of enthusiasm? She supposed she was, when she was sixteen. But her life had been very different to Elizabeth’s, growing up in a dog-eat-dog world where everyone clawed their way to the top. Haven was an oasis of innocence. The children and young adults who lived here couldn’t appreciate what their parents had gone through when they were their age.
Grace hoped they never would.
Kurt Thompson was a shade past fourteen years old, in what the kids called age-time. They knew the adults measured their ages in Earth-years instead of Serendipity-years, and accepted this as normal. They didn’t realize the adults did this because they couldn’t get their heads around the idea their eldest children were now twenty-one.
Children attended school in Haven when they became ready. That meant starting with a few hours per day at three years old. At ten they were apprenticed to an adult, at first for only a couple hours per week, then for longer and longer as they grew older. In reality, they chose a mentor even earlier – their parents steered the children toward subjects that interested them, and matched them with an adult who would help them develop.
Kurt liked to tinker with electronics. He soon found himself apprenticed to his own mother, who now had four boys under her wing. He knew she looked with envy at John, who had the only girl interested in engineering as an apprentice. Alas, Mia Kovalevskaya wanted to be a mining engineer, which made John the best choice as her mentor.
Each apprentice gained responsibilities as they grew into their chosen vocation, and Kurt now monitored the Hope. This he undertook with a solemn diligence, somewhat in awe at first. Every day, he went to the office housing the communication equipment that connected them to the Hope, checked the ship’s status and reported to Heidi. He carried a phone of his very own that alerted him to any unusual events.
This evening, he was late to dinner as he hung back in the office. He spent more time there than he needed to, which Heidi thought was dedication. He was being diligent, but there was something he hadn’t shared with anyone else.
His secret friend: the Hope.
Hope’s flight computer was an artificial intelligence, although not regarded as self-aware. It featured very sophisticated programming, though, and its creators had incorporated several surprising features. This included interacting with any second-generation colonists it encountered – so far, only Kurt.
He still remembered when he first made contact. On the spur of the moment, after performing his daily checks, he’d opened a chat window and typed:
>Are you lonely up there?
No one should have responded, so he nearly fell off his chair in surprise when an answer came back:
>I watch over you.
He’d lost track of time as he responded and chatted with the massive ship orbiting overhead. Kurt hadn’t heard of the Turing test, but if he had, he’d have been inclined to think he’d found a machine that passed for a human. Even better, his new friend had an important virtue: it never tired of hearing the question why?
Tonight he’d been in full flight, asking an endless sequence of questions that started with, “Why can’t we go to Earth?”
Instead of an answer, there’d been a chime and a green indicator on his screen, then:
>INCOMING MESSAGE
Kurt’s eyes widened as the message scrolled in front of his eyes. A minute later, he was up and on his feet, running for the park.
Tau Ceti had long since set, but the air was still warm. The humidity dropped as the misters ceased spraying cooling water from the ceiling. Light from the kitchen drowned out most of the stars visible through the main cavern dome, but not all. David could still admire the night sky.
“This is perfection. All the benefits of a tropical climate and not one damned mosquito anywhere.”
Grace smiled. Languid evenings next to the lake had become a regular feature of their lives. The stress of their journey and the frantic hard work of establishing the colony seemed a million years ago.
“I’m sure Josh could make you some if you’re lacking the authentic tropical experience.”
David shook his head. “I don’t think we brought any with us.”
“You’d be surprised. We have cells for just about every type of plant or creature that ever lived on Earth.”
“Not all. There’s one thing we know is missing.” David grinned as he nodded toward the table next to them, where John Coultas sat with Heidi and Josh.
“Ah, yes. Tragic, that.”
John was a man who liked his beer, and he’d dedicated part of his precious cargo allocation from Earth to a few bottles for special occasions. One of his first priorities after they’d set up their new home had been to begin brewing replacement ale. He had despaired when he discovered that Humulus lupulus, otherwise known as the hop plant, hadn’t made the cut for the seed bank.
“How can I make beer without hops?” he’d said, sharing his sorrow with Heidi, another who liked a drop of ale after a hard day’s work. It didn’t hold him back for long, but he declared that even the best of his substitute beers could never be perfect.
They looked up in surprise as Kurt Thompson came sprinting into the park, a yard short of breath. He stopped between their two tables, hands on knees, gasping for air, words failing him.
“Kurt, what’s wrong?” Heidi asked, rising from her seat.
Kurt sucked in a deep breath and waved his phone. “It’s the Hope,” he managed before taking another breath. “There’s a message!”
Everyone gathered around, attracted by the commotion.
“A message?” David asked, frowning. “From Earth?” They’d lost contact with Earth sixteen years ago and had all but given up hope of ever hearing from their home world again.
Kurt shook his head. “No, no! It’s from the Inspiration! They’re coming here in five days!”
He couldn’t have found a more effective way to stop conversation. Of all things David had expected to hear, this’d been dead last on his list.
“Oh my God!” Grace said, hand flying to her mouth.
David reached for the phone, and Kurt handed it over. Silence fell as he read the message. He looked up at the crowd gathered around him.
“He’s right. It seems the Inspiration project didn’t get canceled. They’re in the inner system and will be at Serendipity in five days.”
“Five days! Why didn’t they contact us before this?” Veronika asked. “For years they have been coming! Why haven’t they told us long ago?”
David nodded, his lips compressed together. “There is something not right about this.”
It was late in the
evening, and the colony’s leadership council, the original eight members of the Hope’s crew, had met to discuss Kurt’s dramatic news.
They all looked at the message as if hoping they could divine more meaning from the few short words they’d received.
2126-05-17T22:00 Message begins. HSS Inspiration inbound, Edward Harper commanding. ETA Serendipity 2126-05-22T16:30. Message ends.
“That’s it? One text message?” Nigel asked.
“That’s it,” David said. “No audio. No video. No telemetry. Just one text message.”
“HSS,” John said. “Harper Space Systems. It’s a private ship.”
“Is it … do you think he’s that Edward Harper?” Grace asked.
When they’d left Earth sixty-three years ago, Harper Industries was spreading throughout the solar system, showing signs it would grow to dominate interplanetary space travel. But the company did not belong to the consortium building the Hope or the Inspiration.
“I don’t doubt it,” David said.
John narrowed his eyes. “Yep, it’ll be him – if there’s a sinking ship he’d be the first rat overboard. I wouldn’t trust that bastard as far as I could throw him. He’s got a reputation for screwing people over, so if he’s trying to spring some kind of surprise on us, it ain’t gonna be a nice one.”
Nathalie nodded in agreement. “It’s too strange. If they’re coming, they should have contacted us long ago, to see how things are here. They should be happy to tell us the good news, but we hear nothing from them.”
“We don’t even know who’s coming,” Josh said. “Apart from him.”
“We’ve sent a reply,” David said, turning to Nathalie.
“Nothing,” she said. “I’m looking for the ship, but I haven’t found it yet.”
“So what do we do?” Heidi asked.
Everyone’s eyes turned to David.
“Prepare to receive guests.” He looked at Nigel and Josh. “The three of us can look to increasing food production. Eight extra mouths won’t be a problem, but we may as well get started. John and Heidi, we’ll need more houses. Can you start on four new units?”
John nodded. “Sure. We won’t build anything special for Mister bloody Harper though.”
David grinned. “I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
“What about the rest of us?” Grace asked.
“We need to figure out what to tell the kids,” David said. “They don’t know what a stranger is. Now we have to teach them.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Summer heat had combined with the greenhouse effect of Haven’s extensive glazing to send the daytime temperature soaring to the mid-thirties, Celsius. Sweat beaded on John’s forehead as he labored alongside Heidi and the construction robots to assemble the new houses. The bots did the heavy lifting, but it took little effort to perspire in this heat.
“Crikey, I think the kids are right. Maybe we need more cooling in here.”
Heidi rolled her eyes. “Now you say this.”
Air conditioning in summer had been a matter of frequent debate. Despite his vocation, John favored managing their temperature without machines if possible. “Yeah, well, I’m coming around to the idea.”
Heidi glanced at their apprentices. They were poring over the plans for the new units, talking among themselves as they tried to figure out what to do next. Her two were Vasily Miller and Kurt Thompson. John had three under his wing – Thomas and Kevin Miller, and Mia Kovalevskaya. Funny, she thought, how most of their protégés had turned out to be Miller boys. Maybe engineering was a recessive gene!
The fruits of their labor were appearing before their eyes. They had long before worked out designs for basic housing units, and now had extensive fabrication tools and robots that could put a house together in only two days. By the time the Inspiration arrived, there’d be four new houses ready for its crew.
Everyone had been busy. A previously unknown force – civic pride – had bubbled to the surface. New houses alone would not be enough – they had to be decorated and provisioned. They worked hard to spruce up their own houses and tidy their gardens and work areas. The smaller children ran to and fro, hindering as much as helping, but determined to do their part.
“Do you think they’ll have kids with them?” Nicole asked, her eyes wide at the thought of exotic children from Earth.
“Nah, don’t be daft,” Kurt said. He rarely got to hang out with the fifteen-year-olds, but found himself promoted in status due to his discovery of the Inspiration. “They only have eight crew members. They’ll be like our parents.”
“Who said?” Konstantin demanded. He shifted to find a more comfortable spot in the large walnut tree they were perched in. “There might be more than eight.”
Kurt shook his head. “Dad says the Inspiration is a duplicate of the Hope. They only have room for eight.”
There was silence as they digested this news.
Nicole brightened at a new thought. “Perhaps they brought us presents!”
“Why would they do that?” Vasily asked.
“Think about it! They’ve come all the way from Earth,” she replied, savoring the taste of the word, as if just saying it could conjure up all manner of exotic things. “They don’t need to bring all the food and plants and stuff our parents brought. And they’ll want to impress us with all the cool stuff new on Earth since they left!” She hugged herself, dreaming of what they might bring.
“Do you really think so?” Vasily’s voice betrayed how much he wished it could be so. They were far above the Earth average for intelligence, but teenage logic follows its own rules, rules that inevitably center on what everyone else can do for them.
“I’m sure of it! It makes so much sense! Don’t you see? That’s why they didn’t contact us until now! They want to surprise us!”
Nicole was impressed with her own flawless logic. All by herself she’d solved the puzzle of the Inspiration’s secretive approach!
“Of course!” Joyce said. “They wouldn’t want to tell us in case they had an accident. That way we wouldn’t be disappointed if they didn’t arrive. We wouldn’t even know we’d missed out!”
“We should tell our parents,” Konstantin said. “They probably haven’t figured this out yet.”
Nicole swung a leg over the branch she sat on and wriggled her way down. “You’re right. Let’s do it now!”
She started a stampede as they competed to be the first to spread the news of their marvelous insight.
“So, what do we think?” Grace smiled as she looked around at the other adults once again gathered in council. The children hadn’t been invited, much to their disgust – they had felt sure they would earn entry for the brilliance of their reasoning.
John snorted. “I think they’re right in one respect,” he said. “That fucker Harper’s got a surprise in mind.”
Carla was bored with Vasily and Joyce. She’d played with them, like a child poking an animal with a stick, but there were limits to that source of fun. Even she knew the pair were needed until the Inspiration reached the safety of orbit around Serendipity.
So she turned instead to Edward.
She walked to his office, the uniform glow of the walls and ceiling giving a stark look to the connecting corridor.
Edward’s office provided a jarring contrast to this minimalistic design. Edward had particular tastes. It was an exact duplicate of his office in Greenland, assuming it still existed, which was a duplicate of his office in Geneva, which almost certainly no longer did.
Rich stained oak paneling adorned the walls. A bookshelf containing real paper books sat behind a mahogany desk. An expensive leather sofa occupied the facing wall, next to the door, with two comfortable armchairs and a coffee table completing the informal seating arrangements. To the right of the door, a recessed high-definition screen made a realistic impression of a window. It displayed the same vista Edward would have seen from his Geneva office – a view out over the lake. The Jet d’Eau played in t
he background. Low patchy mist clung to the shores, shrouding the late afternoon sun.
Edward sat at his desk, an old-fashioned lamp casting a pool of liquid golden light. He hadn’t noticed Carla arriving, so intent had he been on his plans. He had plans within plans within plans, a complex tree that catered for every eventuality, removing the need to think tactically. Once, Carla had challenged him on this, implying he couldn’t allow for all possible outcomes. He’d smiled and told her it was simply a matter of applying the time needed to make sure he did. That and spending enough money.
She shut the door with an audible click. Edward looked up, his eyes wide. Carla leered. She enjoyed this part the most.
“I thought I’d start by fucking you on the sofa,” she said in a casual tone of voice, as if that was something any visitor to his office might do. “Then we’ll see.”
Two days had passed since the dramatic news, and they’d made contact with the Inspiration. David sat in the communications office with a crowd squeezed in behind him – the entire population of Haven, it seemed. The children fidgeted and craned their necks to glimpse the stranger.
In front of them, on screen, was the face of Edward Harper himself.
David started with introductions. “This is David Miller, colony leader of Haven, Serendipity. I guess you must be Edward Harper?”
Straightaway they heard Edward say, “Greetings from Earth. I am Edward Harper, commander of the Harper Spaceship Inspiration. Captain Miller, I presume?”
David smiled at Edward’s words. They’d given up hope of any “Greetings from Earth” years ago – to hear someone else, anyone else from their home planet had a surreal quality to it. David felt as if he ought to pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. “It is. We’ll wait for you to turn the conversation over before replying, to allow for the lag.”
Nathalie had located the Inspiration four light-seconds away, which accounted for the short delay during which their signals had crossed.
The Seasoning Page 2