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Decision Point (ARC)

Page 32

by Bryan Thomas Schmidt


  use. It’s my aim to get this vessel up and running. Then we’ll

  have five ships, and we can make a good accounting of ourselves

  when the DPs come.”

  “Can we even understand the systems, sir?” Rex asked. “This

  technology far surpasses what we’re used to.”

  The older commander turned to him. Behind the reflected

  glimmer on the curved faceplate, Rex could see his frown. “Just

  because you don’t have any balls, doesn’t mean you don’t have

  any brains. I’m counting on you to figure this out, Rex. It’s the

  only way we can survive.”

  Rex didn’t think they would survive in any case, but he made

  no further comment. The other newts waited to receive

  instructions.

  After they broke into the Dutchman, the salvagers separated

  into teams and methodically moved from deck to deck. They

  discovered the iron-hard bodies of six DC soldiers, expressions

  frozen as if surprised that a tiny group of isolationists had fought

  so bitterly against their impressive ship. Two of Heron’s men let

  out defiant cries of triumph; the others were queasy and silent.

  The newts were put on corpse detail, gathering and ejecting the

  dead soldiers. They didn’t mind.

  On the bridge, Commander Heron and his men studied the

  dead ship’s systems. Rex stepped up to the engine controls and

  navigation modules, and peered down to read the labels on each

  station. He knew how to fix familiar systems—recyclers,

  irrigators, and lighting—but these looked different.

  “Don’t just stand there and make this place crowded,” Heron

  said. “Not much time left!” The other newts spread out and began

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  to make repairs.

  With so many unknown factors, the Worthies had no way of

  determining exactly when the retaliatory ships would arrive.

  After receiving distress signals from the battle in the rings six

  months ago, Earth should have taken at least a month to gather a

  new fleet, which would take five or more months in transit. But

  if the DC military had modified their engines, improved their

  speed or fuel efficiency, they could fly to Saturn more swiftly

  than expected.

  By any calculation, the DPs could be here any day.

  Rex used a circuit mapper and command-train isolator to

  check the station panels, one row after another. He documented

  which modules were functional and which needed to be routed

  around or replaced. Even if the Dutchman were completely

  repaired, though, the new DC ships were bound to be far

  superior.

  That first engagement had been unintentional, at least on

  Earth’s part. The Democratic Progressives had sent an

  exploratory force through the solar system, mapping resources,

  choosing possible locations for new colonies and outposts.

  “It’s what so-called ‘progressives’ do,” Ardet had said in a

  speech to every member of the Worthy colony. “They spread,

  and exploit, and take what they want. We cannot let them steal

  our homes! We dare not let them disrupt our grand experiment.

  We must prove the strength of our principles.” His voice grew

  deeper and more powerful; it had been so stirring that Rex found

  himself moved in spite of the implant. “The DPs are barbarians—

  they will pillage, and rape, and destroy everything we hold dear!”

  The Worthy men had howled, the women had cringed, and

  the newts had listened carefully. The men gathered every

  possible ship, cobbled together anything that could be used as a

  weapon, then set an ambush in the rings to protect their way of

  life.

  The DC exploratory force had come to Saturn with escort

  ships and scientific vessels, intending to use the plentiful ice in

  the rings to replenish their fuel and water supplies. Rex had

  studied the records of their arrival, and (as far as he could tell)

  the DPs had taken no aggressive action; it seemed possible that

  they hadn’t even known about the tiny hidden colony. But fiery-

  eyed Ardet called it an incursion, a criminal trespass by

  plunderers. After overcoming birth pains and terrible difficulties,

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  the colony had begun to thrive, exactly according to the design.

  They wanted nothing to do with the people of Earth.

  The DC scientists and pilots were astonished when the

  Worthy men attacked. Though the DC exploratory fleet was not

  a military force, they had fought back, killing most of the young

  men and Ardet Hollings himself before being destroyed

  themselves.

  “Nothing here we can’t fix,” Commander Heron said,

  rapping on the arm of the captain’s chair. “We can get the

  Dutchman flying again!” He looked around the bridge as if

  expecting the newts to cheer, but they continued their tasks with

  silent efficiency. He turned to Rex. “You. You’re Ardet’s own

  son. Doesn’t anything get you riled up?”

  Rex shrugged in his bulky suit. “That’s not possible, sir.” He

  reset a panel and was gratified to see that all systems were now

  functional. “But I do my job to the best of my abilities. Is there

  something inadequate about my performance?”

  Discouraged, the commander let out a long sigh that was

  audible across the helmet radio. “We won’t be able to last five

  minutes against the forces from Earth.”

  *

  Back at his familiar work in the greenhouse domes,

  comfortable with the routine despite the imminent arrival of the

  DPs, Rex was glad to be doing something worthwhile. “There is

  no more glorious work than providing food for our people,”

  Ardet had said to all greenhouse workers. And since Rex also

  worked on the illumination and irrigation systems, he felt he was

  doing even more than his part. It gave him a warm satisfaction to

  know he fit in so well.

  Overhead, bright stars and outlying ring fragments moved

  like fireflies. Some of the women harvesting produce looked up

  nervously, as if expecting them to be braking jets from Earth

  ships; Rex saw only lovely lights as bright as diamonds.

  He hummed a tuneless song to relax himself, though the

  implant did most of the job. Crews of newts and women picked

  ripe vegetables and fruits, never letting anything go to waste. The

  recycled air smelled fresh, moist, mulchy. Overhead lamps

  poured out warm, buttery light to nourish the plants. Coming

  around the gauzy limb of Saturn, the sun also rose, adding its

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  distant light and life. Bees transported from Earth buzzed around

  the flowers, sexless drones doing their work for the betterment

  of the hive.

  Two years ago, encouraged by his father, Rex had improved

  the hydroponic trays and then the nutrient-delivery irrigators in

  the planted rows. Now he drew a deep breath and sighed as he

  looked out at the colorful pat
terns of growth, all the shades of

  green. Each species was planted in the proper order for optimal

  food production, everything in its place, everything productive.

  Ardet Hollings had been such a genius.

  Rex ruffled his fingers through the velvety leaves of

  enhanced strawberries. Ripe and red, they would make a sweet

  dessert; perhaps Mother would serve some tonight. She had been

  more extravagant with her cooking in the past few weeks, as if

  to reassure everyone that nothing was wrong.

  As he moved the leaves aside, Rex spotted a darting lizard.

  The original colonists had brought no large animals with them

  from Earth, but along with the bees they had released numerous

  small animals such as birds, shrews, and tiny lizards. The birds

  and rodents had died; only the lizards had survived, and thrived,

  finding an entire ecological niche for themselves.

  Rex tried to catch it, but he wasn’t quick enough. The lizard

  vanished among the strawberry plants, showing only a flicker of

  a tail that was a different color—obviously broken off and then

  regrown. Lizards had that amazing regenerative ability. Rex

  went back to his work picking the berries.

  In the beginning, Worthies had planted only the fastest

  growing and highest-energy-density foods, then used

  reprocessing chemistry to break down even the waste vegetation

  into edible mass. They’d had nothing else to eat. Because of

  Ardet’s innovative survival measures, that crisis had passed

  when Rex was just a child, and now the Worthies had the luxury

  and the inclination to plant decorative flowers and ornamental

  shrubs from stored genetic samples.

  This place had become a home instead of just a subsistence

  colony. But it wouldn’t last.

  In their fourth year away from Earth, one of the three primary

  greenhouses had failed; a piece of rogue stony debris thrown

  from an impact in the rings had sailed at high velocity into the

  armored dome, shattering several panes and hemorrhaging

  atmosphere. Most of the air was gone, the temperature plunged,

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  the greenhouse sent into an unstable wobble. Seven people died,

  and all the plants perished—one third of the crops to feed the

  settlement. Adding to the disaster, a blight had swept through the

  corn crop in one of the other greenhouses, decimating that

  harvest as well.

  On the relatively new colony, their survival had already been

  hanging by a thread. Most of their preserved supplies were

  already gone. Devastated by the loss, the Worthies watched their

  perfectly planned future crumble. Though workers scrambled to

  build another greenhouse dome and create subsidiary growing

  areas, they faced the very real prospect of dying—or returning,

  beaten, to repressive Earth.

  Ardet rallied them. “Return is never an option! We have

  fought too hard to establish a perfect society. I have provided the

  road map. Do we dare take our children back to that hellhole?

  How could we betray them in such a way?” He had lifted his

  young son Rex for all his followers to see. Now, when Rex

  watched the tapes and studied his father’s words, he was glad

  that in his small way he had helped Ardet make his point. “We

  have given our citizens their places, defined their roles, offered

  them security instead of cultural pandemonium. Men and women

  fill the niches for which they were bred, without the confusion of

  too much freedom and too many pressures.” It was a famous

  speech that all students were required to memorize. In the

  recording, the people were bleak, gaunt and hollow-eyed—with

  fear, as much as from hunger.

  After the greenhouse failure, knowing they would barely

  have enough to eat for the next few years, Ardet had assessed the

  big picture and repainted his grand social landscape. “As

  Worthies, we must watch ourselves. We did not ask for an easy

  life, nor will we ever have one. Our population must always be

  carefully controlled. We will grow, and we will triumph, but out

  here we must do it in a properly planned fashion. This is not

  Earth.”

  “Peace, despite hardship,” the crowd had mumbled.

  “Thus, for the time being, we must stabilize our population.

  We must shore up our society, keep our roles intact, keep our

  people happy. We cannot have strife, nor can we have

  uncontrolled breeding. Thus, as a gesture to strengthen all of us

  in our resolve, we must make sure that no more than two children

  in each family will reproduce.”

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  This announcement had been met with dismay, since

  Worthies had, until now, been encouraged to have large families

  in order to increase their numbers. The people muttered. “Most

  of us already have more children than that, Ardet. Do you …

  want us to kill them?” someone asked from the audience.

  Watching that interchange over and over, Rex was sure that the

  questioner would have done it, if Ardet had asked.

  Their leader shook his head and gave a broad, paternal smile.

  “Of course not. We love our children. They are the building

  blocks of our great society. But, we must use them with great

  care, to a noble purpose.” Ardet had looked at them all with his

  intense visionary glare. “While I am confident we have the

  strength to survive, this crisis is only an example of our possible

  tribulations. By our own design, we are in a new situation here

  at Saturn. We came to escape the anarchy and gluttony of Earth,

  and to do that we must change ourselves … and that is a good

  thing, though it will be hard.

  “For this generation, we must take interim measures.

  Difficult measures, but vital ones. After the first two children,

  our extra sons and daughters will remain important parts of our

  perfect society, but they will also make the sacrifice so that we

  can remain strong and stable.” He had looked at them all. Rex

  still felt a chill when he recalled the historical tapes. “They must

  be neutered.”

  As an educated adult, when Rex considered the details of the

  solution, he didn’t think the mathematics worked out. Neutering

  the additional children had not decreased the number of mouths

  to feed. But, as became clear later, that had only been the first

  part of Ardet’s brilliant plan. Using the greenhouse accident as a

  springboard, he had led his people past another watershed,

  pushed his new society to an entirely new level.

  Because he was their leader, because his followers would do

  anything he asked, they had not argued. To show his sincerity,

  Ardet had won their hearts by offering up his own young son as

  the first to be castrated. Rex was told again and again what a

  great thing he was doing, though being only four years old at the

  time he had understood nothing about what was really being

  taken from him.

  After a la
rge group of children was neutered and properly

  raised—girls as well as boys—Ardet had quietly revealed his

  deeper motivation to create an entire layer of society without

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  aggression, without destructive competitiveness. Newts were

  cooperative and friendly, productive, and completely reliable, if

  not ambitious; the boys being the most prominently changed.

  The castration itself was not sufficient for Ardet’s purpose,

  though. With carefully metered implants, the newts remained on

  an even emotional footing, causing no trouble. Each family was

  allowed two viable children, and the rest became a new caste, the

  strong and stable foundation for a great Worthy civilization. Rex

  had listened to the rationales over and over. He thought it was

  breathtaking.…

  Now, as Rex and the newts continued their work in the

  greenhouse, the women reacted to a signal piped in over the

  dissemination channel. The words were spoken in a crisp voice

  with just a tinge of fear. “An outpost on the fringe of the outer

  ring has picked up radio chatter, and long-distance sensors have

  just discovered the Earth military force on its way. The

  Democratic Progressives will arrive at the rings of Saturn within

  a week, two at the most.”

  Hearing this, Rex missed his brothers more than ever. He had

  never understood them, but he loved them nevertheless. In their

  youth, Lee and Ian had fought and wrestled with each other, so

  full of life. Fairly bursting with energy, they had always

  exhausted their little brother. They had tried to include Rex in

  their roughhousing play, but even as a boy he had never enjoyed

  it—due more to the implant than the actual neutering. What if he

  had been more like them?

  As he finished filling his container with strawberries, Rex

  looked up through the transparent dome. He thought about Jen,

  desperate for him to be something he wasn’t, then felt sorry for

  Ann and her little boy. For their sakes, he tried to imagine

  himself in a Worthy soldier’s uniform. What if it came down to

  that?

  Would he grab a projectile repeater rifle and stand at the

  habitat doorway with Mother, Ann, and Jen behind him?

  Snarling, would he point the hot barrel of the weapon toward

 

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