Curt busied himself building partitions between the modules, happy to satisfy all of our requests for the shape and dimensions of each. I went to sleep that night in my own partitioned room, on a stack of comfortable bed pads, twenty yards from anyone else.
It was my best night’s sleep in many months.
11th day after Landfall
I find this place really very beautiful, if strangely unwelcoming. When brightly illuminated by our new roof-top spotlights, the icy surface looks like a snowy wonderland, festooned with sparkling crystals. Our moon glimmers with optimism and fresh hope whenever I gaze out over its weird expanse.
Dad and Curt have made six trips to the canister; we’re now the proud new owners of a set of four big solar arrays. They unfurled easily into huge sheets, and all we had to do was attach automatic struts which keep them off the ground. They are also tilted slightly, so that falling ice and dust won’t gather too thickly, but will still require frequent maintenance. We also have a neat, new reactor device, which I don’t really understand. It takes in the wispy-thin atmospheric nitrogen and converts it into a clear fertilizer liquid which we’re storing in tanks. Soon, once our little greenhouse is up and running, we’ll supercharge the vegetable growth and see spectacular crops. Or so Mom says. In this gravity, I think she’s wildly optimistic, but I cheer her positivity because it’s the right thing to do.
Mom and Dad are reconnecting, now that we have more space and privacy. They’re both visibly happier in this more stable situation. We’re also all of us pretty busy, virtually all day long, setting up the new greenhouse. It’s going to be quite something when it’s ready, and we’ll be looking at a food surplus which will allow us to store away lots of frozen vegetables and pulses.
The farm modules are remarkable. They include ceiling panels made from an unbelievable, new polymer. Curt went EVA to stretch a big sheet of the stuff over the top of a farm module, and then fastened it down with epoxy glue which he squirted from a heated nozzle. The polymer can be adjusted – literally at the turn of a dial – to allow in more or less light and other forms of radiation, so we can program it to dovetail with our growing cycles and irrigation schedules. Our benefactors knew exactly what we would need, and then Curt absolutely nailed the installation. I spent a moment tonight in silent, sincere thanks.
17th day after Landfall
The greenhouse is assembled and the little racks of seedlings are in place, being fed nutrients and given as much natural and artificial light as we can give them. Curt was very involved, and showed a lot of engineering competence. The nutrient system is highly efficient and the lighting, once rigged up, nicely augmented the natural light from our parent planet and the distant sun. Now fully charged, our batteries can provide us with lots of power, all day long. Plus, Curt has been able to boost the radio signal so we’re back in touch with the Deep-Space Network.
Their news was not good, and I can tell we’re all trying not to let it get us down. They can continue sending canisters, but only one per year. Dad nearly hit the roof when that message came through. Formally speaking, it was explained, we are no longer shipwrecked survivors, but new colonists in our own right, and such people are expected to pretty much live off the land and look after themselves without lots of expensive support. The chances of an actual rescue mission have reduced to near zero. Curt tried to cheer us up. “We’ve got food, light, air, water and fuel. And we’ve got each other.”
But Dad was extremely glum. After moping around for a few hours, he decided that these developments warranted a major family meeting, scheduled for tomorrow. I’m going to see if Kiri is awake. I desperately need to be kissed.
19th day after Landfall
Oh God. After all the achievements of our first days here, we’re back to fucking square one.
The meeting was a cataclysm. Curt stood, right at the beginning, and simply appointed himself Chairman. His reasoning was that he’d done much of the work to set up the colony – which was inarguable, but hardly a reason to give him autocratic control – and that he had the best plan for keeping us all alive, long-term.
While Mom and Dad struggled to reassert their natural authority, Curt formally declared our base to be the first colony in this system, acknowledging out loud the truth of the matter: no one was coming to rescue us, and so we had to begin behaving as a viable colony should. This meant redoubling our production and storage of food, fuels, gases and potential structural materials with a view to consolidating our presence on this remote moon. We were, he reminded us, in this for the long haul.
“You mean, you intend for us all to die here?” asked a disconsolate Kiri.
Curt shot back, “I intend for us to live here first.”
Dad stood upright with his arms crossed, scowling furiously, while Curt pressed on with his master plan. Canister deliveries from Valaan, he explained, were to be regarded as infrequent luxuries, not as the mainstay of our supplies. We would request more seeds, possibly also animal embryos, to grow as livestock. He has even conceived of a fish-farm here. There’s a plan for creating herds of animals which will produce milk, pelts, wool and meat for our burgeoning colony.
Dad glowered at him, leaning forward over the broad, octagonal table. “And how do you imagine our population will expand so considerably as to require all of these resources?”
I was afraid of Curt’s answer. “An aggressive program of population growth must begin immediately. We have three females, and all three are viable.”
Everyone else was horrified. Kiri yelled in horror. I moved to punch Curt in the face, but Mom stopped me, grappling my arms to my sides.
Instead, Dad did it. He made a solid connection. Sprawled on the floor, face bloody, Curt simply shook his head clear, stood up slowly, and then continued.
“The three females should be impregnated as quickly as possible. Any delay, particularly if there were an accidental death among the three, would jeopardize the gene pool upon which the colony would rely.”
“Curt, for God’s sake!” Dad yelled. “This is madness! We’re a family, not a gene pool!” Kiri was howling in a corner, her worst fears realized. Mom was crying. This was the great schism, the final collapse I had silently feared – and predicted - since we had fled the stricken Aldebaran.
Then he laid it all down. “Don’t you get it? We have the gravest responsibility here! We carry life to a new part of the Universe!” He looked ridiculous with his bloody face and grandiose gestures. “Human presence here ensures that a variety of life forms will remain viable.”
That word again. Without Mom’s restraining hands, I’d have gone for his fucking throat. “I’m not becoming a baby farm!” yelled Kiri. “We’re people, with rights!”
Curt was unbowed. “You arrived on Aldebaran as a colonist. You’re here to spread life, by whatever means you can. This is your purpose!” Then he sneered at her. “Perhaps your only purpose!”
Dad hit him again. This time he stayed down, holding his face and wincing. Dad shook his knuckles, glanced over at the three of us huddled in the corner, and announced, “There will be no forced pregnancies here. And for damn sure there will be no incest.”
“Then we’re all dead,” managed Curt.
Dad spat, “So fucking be it.”
29th day after Landfall
I need to start with something positive. How about this: six of the new swamp cabbages are nearly half a yard across and still picking up speed. The first crop of fresh, green vegetables should be harvested in about eight days. That new fertilizer is a fucking miracle.
Our family exists in a strange state of uneasy truce. We all knew that Curt was right with his long-term plan, but the thought of going through the steps of procreation with either he or my Dad fills me with the need either to puke, or to dash out onto the surface without a suit on. Which, I keep asking myself, would be worse? Having Curt inside me, or dying in pain on a frozen moon? Honestly, it’s impossible to say.
When he’s not waxing rhapsodic
about the future of our colony, Curt has been working very long hours to get more processes up and running. We’re now collecting and tanking CO2, and small amounts of methane. Another farm module is already partially completed. Dad and Curt work alongside one another because they have to, but they speak little and spend almost none of their free time together. This place, and this new mission of survival and endurance, have changed him out of all recognition. He’s no longer a son, and certainly not a brother, but a driven, single-minded colleague. He reminded us, more than once, that the next supply canister is about 400 days away, and that until then we’re on our own.
63rd day after Landfall
The routine helps. We’ve fallen into a good pattern of work and rest, of time alone and time together. In combination, they’ve eased the worst of the mental health struggles but there’s no hiding the unlikely and screwed-up situation in our little colony. Curt behaves like our leader because – and there’s no longer any real argument about this – he actually is. Dad is operating as a kind of vice-chairman, and Mom is doing her best to bridge the gap between him and Curt. The pressure of her role is terrible, and I’m making sure I spend plenty of time with her, working on something together or just talking.
Kiri was very distant for a few days, dealing with her own problems, but then she apologized and told me how important I was to her. “You’re the only person in this entire system,” she said, “who I actually trust and respect completely.”
“What about Mom and Dad?” I asked her.
“I’d respect them a lot more,” she explained, “if they would put a leash on Curt.” We agreed that they should try to limit his ever-growing power over us. Mom seemed powerless, and Dad was pale and tired these days. “Neither of them is ready to stand up to him. It’s like they aged years since we left Aldebaran.”
Curt’s engineering knowledge, we were forced to admit, had kept us alive. “He’s the only one with a real plan,” I remember telling Kiri. “The alternative is that we’ll all die here, and with us the farms and whatever animals and fish we’re able to raise.”
His latest achievement was quite something. We received a complete manifest for our forthcoming supply canister, and Curt spent days working on an elaborate plan. Today, he showed us his design for his fully-realized farming complex. It would use new, large, inflatable modules, and it would produce enough food each week to feed a colony of eighty or more, with plenty stowed away in case of emergencies. The new canister is much larger than the last one, and the manifest was many pages long. In fact, it seems the only thing they’re not sending us are more people. Those, it seems, we’ll have to create in situ.
My stomach churns whenever I think about it.
88th day after Landfall
Kiri has been sleeping with me for the last few nights, so we’ve been revisiting past joys. Those furtive meetings in the engineering spaces on the Aldebaran. Meeting at night, high up in the upper decks of the atrium, to make love amid the giant ferns. On my nineteenth birthday, in the storage room at her plant lab, lazing on big bags of fertilizer while she licked me. And on the Epsilon, the handful of times it was properly heated, naked in the dark in our sleeping bag.
We also tried sex in our greenhouse, though we had to wait until nighttime. The scents of growth and optimism surrounded us while we noisily fucked on a pile of bed pads. I wish, more than anything, that Kiri would suddenly grow the ability to make me pregnant. Having her baby would be the purest joy. We fantasized about it, imagining different ways she might conceive with me, but I really can’t write those things down…
Oh, God. I have to stop for a moment and masturbate, or I think I’ll just die.
[Later] Much better. Where was I?
By day, I’m delighted to report, it is now a wonderful, bright place packed with vividly green colors. We’ve harvested half an acre of water spinach, huge bunches of herbs and different kinds of cabbage, some tomatoes and a whole lot of celery. Twelve apple trees are making excellent progress, as are another dozen blackberry bushes. There’s been an explosion of fennel fronds, jutting up from the dark soil, and a huge crop of carrots is developing beautifully. I might hate him right now, but Curt’s climate control systems are simply genius.
116th day after Landfall
We have good days and bad days, but we are actually behaving like a colony. Our planning for the future is pretty impressive. Dad was as involved as any of us, but lately he’s been feeling very tired and had scheduled longer rest periods for himself. Curt has taken up the slack without complaining.
A complex, new water treatment system is up and running, so that every evaporated drop is recycled. Even the sweat from my skin – even, it occurred to Kiri and I last night, the juices evaporating from between my legs when I cum – all is used again and again, filtered and then consumed and then pissed out, then filtered, then spread on the crops, then eaten, then…
Kiri and I make love every day, but still virtually my whole waking life is dominated by thoughts of sex. Is it the isolation? Or just the weird tensions which have stalked this little colony since before its inception? Should we just get it all out in the open, confess all our lustful desires, and start Curt’s population project with a massive orgy? Free love, colony style?
Oh God I need to touch it again. What the fuck is wrong with me?
131st day after Landfall
Armageddon. Disaster.
It began, I’m a little embarrassed to report, while Kiri and I were having the sweetest sex in her room. Within seconds, we were pulling on clothes and racing to figure out what was going on.
We heard loud shouting in one of the engineering modules, where the reactor sits behind its piles of shielding. It was Curt and Dad, but we couldn’t hear the whole conversation. Curt was furious and Dad was trying to calm him. The raised voices continued for some time, and then finally, Dad seemed to fall silent. A long time later, he came to Kiri’s door and asked us both to come to the dining area for a family meeting.
Curt was standing up, ramrod straight, looking determined and focused. “We have to talk honestly about what’s going on here.” He wasted no time in reminding us of our duties as colonists. “The dissemination of life is more important than a single person, or even a family. It is the transcendent purpose for which we all signed up, before Aldebaran even left space-dock. And we’ve been neglecting that sacred duty.”
He laid out the new rules. The three women would help him establish and grow the colony. By which, it was quite clear, he meant that we would be expected to sire his children. “As many as possible, as quickly as possible,” he said. There was no mention of Dad in his plan, I noticed at once.
“And what if we refuse?” Kiri said acidly. I knew full well that she would have died a thousand painful deaths before allowing Curt – or any man, for that matter – to touch her like that.
Curt gave a strange smile, and then his expression turned dark. “You know the nuclear reactor which is about eighty yards that way?” he said. “I have installed a small device which I can operate by remote control. If you insist on condemning this colony to a premature death, then I’ll ensure that we all die of a massive dose of radiation.”
Mom was ashen. “You’d poison us all?” she gasped. “Because we won’t…” She couldn’t bring herself to say it.
“Because we won’t fuck you,” Kiri said. She stood opposite him, arms folded. “Then you may as well set it off right now. Do it, and spare us all the misery.”
“If I get a point-blank refusal from all three of you, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” Dad watched this act of blackmail, his face completely drained of blood. Then he put his head in his hands and seemed to withdraw from the discussion completely. He’s barely spoken a word since.
I ask you this, dear Diary: What the fuck could we have done? I could no more have allowed Curt to murder my parents and Kiri than I could have killed them myself.
Oh, sure, he was committed to preserving the colony and fur
thering the universal dissemination of life, blah, blah, fucking blah. But I wasn’t going to let him kill us all, certainly not because of this.
And so, we came to a compromise, the only one he would accept.
140th Day after Landfall.
Mom, Kiri and I were given time to talk everything through. We were faced with the impossible, and had to find a reasonable way forward, or face a terminal case of radiation poisoning. Mom volunteered to be the first, but I vetoed her. Then Kiri vetoed my veto. Progress was very slow.
Dad, for his part, was a wreck. He felt as though he’d failed us, neglected his duty as the leader of our little colony, and given in to a despicable tyrant. He was exhausted, broken. I saw him a few times searching amid the medical supplies. And more than once, sitting alone in an engineering space or one of the greenhouses, crying.
I don’t know for certain, but I’m pretty sure that he’s very ill, and has been hiding his condition from us.
This, of course, was just grist to Curt’s mill. Without the competition of another male, he could sire a whole mini-dynasty of offspring, a ruling class who would lead our little colony to undreamed of greatness.
Unsurprisingly, he cut the Gordian knot of our debate, and announced that he would take me first.
I was ordered to his room, which he’d expanded and decorated as nicely as our meager situation allowed. It has happened twice so far. The first time, the one I was dreading, the one which kept me up all night with nausea, wasn’t quite as awful as it might have been. What helped was that neither of us thought of it as lovemaking. Or even fucking. This was insemination.
The three of us have become walking people farms for our colony. That is our existence now.
Clarion: The Sequel to Voyage (Paul's Travels) Page 3