The mission team members had set up a couple of tables inside and were working on the container manifests as more and more members of the community showed up with carts and floaters to deliver the cargo.
Lucius rolled a chair over to the tables and let everyone know how the presents were identified in the manifest so that they could be saved as the last to be delivered. Once the containers were lined up inside the huge airlock door, Lena and Albert were reading off items from their datapads, directing the unloading. Chuck and Neil had donned heavy outerwear and were supervising the unloading of the refrigerated container, most everything going to the kitchen freezers, and the rest to research laboratories. Once the container was cleared, Neil and another couple of technicians climbed up to disassemble the refrigerator unit.
About mid-afternoon Peanut showed up to welcome Lucius and the rest back home, giving Chuck a heartfelt hug.
“Where’s Chris?” Peanut asked, surprised he was nowhere to be found.
“I have no idea. You didn’t see him last night?” Chuck asked, surprised.
“Hell no! I was letting him hang with Ben and Pat for a while before bugging him with anything. I’ll just leave him a note to give me a call. He deserves some time with the family.”
Turning to Lucius, he asked, “Were you really able to get every single item on the wish list?”
“That, and more. Just you wait,” Lucius said cryptically.
Unknown to Peanut and the others, Christopher was with the council, discussing the question he wanted to put before the colony. They had been in closed session all morning.
“It’s bold, and not everyone is going to like it. And it’s going to cost us some resources down the line. The question is, for how long?” Phillip asked.
“It may be decades. But the bottom line is that no one but us can make it happen. I think when everyone in the community sees what I’m planning, when I call the question I think we can reach a consensus on it in short order. Everyone has seen what can happen, even out here. Just because we’re civilized doesn’t mean anyone else is. My feeling is that the Russian who fired those missiles is the rule, not the exception. As Lucius found out, it’s the envy Earth has for our tech that’s driving them, not a desire to try to develop normalized relations with us, regardless of how Sydney’s ex acted. I think I have covered the full extent of the question. Does anyone have anything to add, or are there any questions about the question?”
Maxwell looked around the table. When no one spoke, he said, “If no one has anything to say, then I guess we can call the question. How long do you want the community to have to consider the question, Chris?”
“How about forty-eight hours? If it comes down to the wire, we can have a community meeting, but with Phillip’s help here I think we covered all the bases.”
“Genesis?”
“Yes, Maxwell. How may I be of assistance?”
“Please pull the latest draft of Christopher’s question off of Phillip’s datapad, post the question and put a forty-eight-hour time limit on it.”
“Done, Maxwell. Will there be anything else I may assist you with?”
“That will be all, Genesis. Thank you. So, there you have it everyone, the question has been called. I dare say we’re all going to be hit up with questions from the community. Just stick to the facts. I believe this is going to be the most important question we’ve ever considered. And it doesn’t mean our work is done. I’d like everyone back here tomorrow morning so we can discuss what others ask us, or are talking about. The last thing we need is some surprise because we haven’t kept our ears to the ground. Is there anything else? Chris?” Maxwell asked, checking one last time. “Okay then, tomorrow at 9:00 A.M. back here.”
As they left the conference room, most either hugged Christopher or clapped him on the back in support. His decision to call the question was something they all considered necessary for the colony’s safety, and for its continued growth. When he checked his datapad, Christopher saw the note from Peanut and checked with Genesis to see where he was.
Peanut was at the big airlock where the cargo containers were still being unloaded, so Christopher headed over to see how they were coming along. When Peanut saw Christopher he quickly met him almost at a run and gave him one hell of a hug when they collided.
“Who the hell gave you permission to play tag with a nuke?” Peanut asked, his relief impossible to conceal. “Don’t you ever take that kind of chance again or I’m really going to have to break my foot off in your ass right after Patricia’s done with you, if there’s anything left!”
Everyone at the tables was looking at their datapads, or looking over the shoulder of someone else. When he looked up and saw Christopher, Lucius said, “This, I take it, is your handiwork?” pointing to the red-bordered message on his screen.
Christopher picked up the pad and read the notice.
“It is. I was working on the question with the council all morning. Did you read through it?”
“I did. I could tell it was your idea. Are you sure we should be taking on this burden at this late date?”
“I do. From here on out it was only going to get worse. It’s time to nip it in the bud, and this is the only way I know how. I asked the entire council to try to come up with options, anything that I didn’t consider, and they had nothing. Do you see a better way forward? If you do, I’m all ears.”
“No, that would be me,” Peanut said, using his hands to wag his slightly-larger-than-average-sized ears.
Everyone at the table laughed, then quickly quieted, wanting to hear more between Christopher and Lucius.
“I will say this, it’s both bold and ambitious and has the potential to make far-reaching changes that won’t occur otherwise. As I said decades ago, you never fail to think big,” Lucius observed.
“Ain’t that the truth! Look how fast we were able to come home. Without these two here,” Neil said, pointing to Christopher and Peanut, “we’d still be motoring back home with seven more months to go before we arrived.”
“Or still stuck on Earth going through the same racist, sexist bullshit as before,” Lena added bitterly.
The men were silent, waiting to see if Lena was going to go off on a rant. When she didn’t continue, they resumed checking inventory from the cargo containers, with Lucius flagging surprise presents he had secretly procured to be put aside for the time being.
Christopher sat down with Peanut, their datapads between them, and in no time at all they were deep into a technical discussion about the interdimensional probe that left everyone else lost in the jargon. After about ten minutes they returned to English that the others could understand.
“Have you tested the Genesis clone hardware?” Christopher asked.
“Twice. And we shielded the computer hardware in case the physics of interdimensional space are so different that our cosmological constants are too different for our hardware to work at all. With the probe heavily shielded like that, we’re essentially bringing a bubble of our four-dimensional space with it. Otherwise, if the physics are too different, then the probe would go dead on arrival,” Peanut explained.
“Yeah, I see that. I didn’t even think about that happening before you brought it up. Sometimes you make me feel like a moron, Peanut!”
“I can’t take all the credit. Genesis brought it up early on when we were trying to think of how we could measure things like the speed of light or the passage of time outside the probe once we navigate between dimensions. Between me, TJ, and Genesis, we designed and built a self-contained physics lab about the size of a basketball. It has a shielded fiberoptic cable that connects with several instruments and sensors mounted outside the probe’s shields. Once we leave our dimension, the next thing I want to work on is a way to communicate with the probe while it’s in between dimensions,” Peanut explained.
“If that’s even possible,�
� Christopher commented.
“Right,” Peanut quickly agreed.
“I’m worried about navigating in between,” Christopher said, tapping on his datapad.
“Well, we first have to go in between, and then the harder task is getting back. I have no idea if just reversing the fields will bring it back.”
“I thought of that while I was bringing the asteroid to the moon. It looked like getting out of our dimension wasn’t going to be too hard, but until I knew what we were facing on the other side of the dimensional barrier, I had no idea how to transition back,” Christopher said, shaking his head.
“That’s the thing. We can’t know until we get there. Hey, let’s not sweat it now.”
Peanut clapped Christopher on the back, turned to Lucius and said, “Hey, where’s all my stuff?”
“The departmental equipment and supplies are already in your lab. The personal stuff should be sitting inside your quarters by now. I called Bernice and she met the guys when they brought the boxes to your floor. And hang on for a second,” Lucius said, getting up and rummaging in a pile of boxes that had accumulated behind the tables.
When he finally found what he was looking for, he brought it over and handed it to Peanut with a flourish and a bow. Peanut took the box, wrapped in plain brown paper, and gave a questioning look to Lucius.
“Okay, you two, you have to promise to keep quiet about what I’m going to tell you.”
“Yeah, sure. What up?” Christopher asked.
“I brought something back for every single person here that wasn’t on the list; as a surprise,” he explained.
“Holy shit! Like Santa Claus?” Peanut exclaimed.
Lucius and Christopher laughed. “I guess something like that. After the dinner hour Lena, Neil and Albert and going to load up a floater while Chuck and Julius guard the pile back there and we’re going to start delivering them to everyone.”
“You are too much!” Christopher said, hugging the older man. “Who else knows about this?”
“He didn’t even tell us until we started opening up the cargo containers. Only then did he transfer the full manifest to our datapads so we wouldn’t accidentally mix stuff up,” Albert said. “There’s going to be a hot time in the ol’ town tonight!”
With a good number of people helping to unload and deliver, by the time the dinner hour rolled around the bulk of the work was done. The ground crew members ran and got a quick bite, then came back and loaded up all the presents on three floaters and began to play the colony’s home-grown Santa Claus.
Christopher was home with Patricia and Ben, reading Ben a story, when Lena and Albert stopped by with the gifts. For Christopher there was two pounds of peanut brittle, Patricia received a series of historical volumes on the Civil War, one of her non-scientific passions. The note Lucius sent along with the volumes explained that they had not been converted to digital format yet so the only way they could be appreciated was in print. And for Ben, there was a set of slot cars and a huge box of track so he could make his own layouts.
Of course Ben wanted to immediately try out his new toy but Christopher said it was too late. He did promise Ben that right after school the next day they would get a table and put together a track in Ben’s bedroom. Patricia did allow Ben to make space on the shelf by his bed for the four cars so they would be the first thing he would see when he woke up the next morning.
The next day all anyone could talk about were the supplies and equipment the Earth mission had brought back and the surprises Lucius had brought back under the noses of the Earth mission ground team. In the midst of all the good cheer was the serious business of the colony’s consideration of Christopher’s question.
At breakfast, Maxwell eavesdropped shamelessly, hearing equal numbers of conversations about new equipment, the good to which it all would be put, and the implications of Christopher’s question. Along the way he spotted Andrea engrossed in serious conversation with Sydney and wondered what was up, but he kept moving, looking forward to grabbing breakfast with Phillip and Alma.
Sydney looked up and gave a little wave to Maxwell, but didn’t stop her conversation with Andrea.
“… but you’ve been here three times as long as I have. How do you think something like that could ever happen? I mean we all know how Chris feels, it’s the whole reason he thought up the colony in the first place,” Sydney was saying.
“But this is a special case. There’s got to be some special consideration,” Andrea insisted. “I’ve been thinking about this ever since we were listening in on Lucius and John’s conversation. What I got was that he’s smart, compassionate and obviously doesn’t have any deeply-rooted race hangups; I see why you love him. Tell me, what was it like talking to him again?”
“It was … ” Sydney began, then paused. After a moment she continued. “At first it wasn’t real. It was like some weird kind of dream. Emotionally I closed the books on John even before Joy was born. She was never going to meet him, and we were never going to speak again. But when Genesis informed me that he was on the mission I was—I really didn’t know what to feel,” she said, then went silent.
Andrea waited almost a minute before she said, “I really can understand that.” She paused a moment then added, “But about my original question, how do you feel about the idea?”
Sydney shook her head. “In a perfect world it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference. But in reality it does. It’s the whole reason we’re here. The only reason I would even consider the idea is the same reason why it’s just not going to work. I have to believe that were it to happen, Joy would take the brunt of any ill will generated.”
“So, no calling the question to consider bringing Joy’s father here?” Andrea said soberly.
“Absolutely not.”
Seeing the look on Andrea’s face, Sydney reached over and grasped Andrea’s hand. “I’m sorry, Andrea. I didn’t mean to sound so harsh, and I love that you spent all this time thinking about making Joy and me happy.” The two women reached out and hugged each other, both of their eyes tearing up.
While they were hugging, Chuck walked up to the table and asked, “Is this a private party, or may I join you? If you’re in the middle of something, it’s no problem.”
Andrea looked at Sydney, who merely shrugged her shoulders. Andrea pulled a chair out for Chuck and scooted over to give him room.
“So ladies, what were you all chatting about? Did I interrupt something personal?” asked Chuck as he began to eat.
Andrea looked over to Sydney, seeing if she had any objection to revealing the gist of the conversation, and when she saw Sydney give a little nod, said, “I had the notion to call the question about inviting Joy’s father here to live.”
Chuck froze as he realized what Andrea said. He looked over to Sydney to see her nod. “Eh, I mean, uh, okaaaaaay. So why … what—what did you two decide?” he sputtered.
“Before we tell, what do you think about the idea?” Andrea prodded.
Chuck paused, thinking. “I will tell you this, the first thing I thought of was what Chris would say; he ain’t too keen on white folks.”
“But he’s Joy’s father. You heard him talking to Lucius, he’s smart and kind. Imagine what might have happened if he hadn’t helped Lucius and Julius get away,” protested Andrea.
“Maybe so, but that’s not going to sway Chris, if I’m not mistaken. What do you think, Syd? You want him to come live here?” Chuck bluntly asked. “I’ll be honest, if it’s something you want bad enough we can always call the question.”
“That’s what I was telling her!” Andrea exclaimed.
Sydney held up her hand to stop the other two from speaking. “I appreciate both of you being willing enough to bring this to the whole colony but I just can’t do it. First off it’s too selfish. There’s hundreds of people here who left behind really important people in
their lives. And if we aren’t considering their families and friends, then we shouldn’t be talking about me, about Joy and me. It’s been ten years and Joy doesn’t know John at all. And frankly, I still love John enough that I would never have him live here as the only white man in this community.”
Chuck chuckled. “Yeah, I was thinking about that myself. I for damn sure wouldn’t want to be the only brother livin’ in a community this size of all white folks. Not to mention there’s just too much resentment towards whites here, no offense meant to John, to really think about having them here, especially just one.”
“I know. But bless your heart, Andrea, for thinking about me,” Sydney said, reaching for Andrea’s hand. The two women let Chuck eat most of his lunch in silence. When he was nearly done, they started discussing Christopher’s called question.
Several tables over, the conversation was just getting started as the Phillip and Alma joined Maxwell for breakfast.
“Alma. Haven’t seen you for weeks, how’ve you been?” Maxwell said, getting to his feet and giving her a hug.
“I’ve been well. Mostly working over some of the new education standards we’ve been looking at implementing. We really want to move up some of the science modules to the younger grades. Since most of our three- and four-year-olds are already reading, we’re investigating writing science, math and engineering modules for the children as young as five and six; age-appropriate content only, of course.
“That sounds intriguing. Are there any outstanding issues that the council needs to examine to help you along?” asked Maxwell.
“Not yet. We are really getting a lot of help from Genesis. Since the A.I. keeps track of every student here, we’ve had a lot of input on content design based on the level of comprehension and abstract thinking our students exhibit at those ages. And with each child getting what amounts to a custom curriculum based on interest and achievement, we think exposing them to science and technology concepts early will give them a leg up in helping them choose careers and interests that they truly are interested in, not necessarily what we expect of them. If someone is dead set on music, or psychology, whatever, they will still be afforded the opportunity to excel in those fields as well. Did you know Daniel and Sharon’s boy wants to be a movie director and producer? And he’s only eight. Being here, and having Genesis as a teaching aide, I just can’t imagine how schools back on Earth could ever compete with our accelerated learning programs.”
Confrontation Page 69