The reverend’s face turned red, and Roland sensed an outburst about to happen. It didn’t. She visibly calmed, once again addressing the crowd. “Very well, Veronica. Join me in the water.”
“Come on, Rollie. Let’s vamoose,” Tony said, grabbing Roland by the arm.
“She has some nerve,” Roland said.
When they were halfway to the treatment plant, Tony stopped. “Why did you have to provoke her? You know she’s not going to turn away from a fight.”
“Whatever. She’s not worth our time. Come inside, and I’ll show you how to operate the computer system.” Roland led him to the door, trying not to concern himself with the reverend. He would advise Carrie that they were in the water, contaminating it, which could in turn affect the quality of their colony’s water. It was the least he could do.
TWENTY-ONE
Val
Val grabbed Tony’s hand as they walked into Eden Seven for lunch. Roland and Kendra were strolling in just ahead of them, along with a crowd of colonists. It was a familiar scene. This was the same mess hall where they’d dined while Eden had been in space: a cafeteria-style setting with gleaming stainless steel walls and tables, and chairs bolted to sliding rails.
The guards were different, however, Val noted as they walked up the landing ramp and in through the airlock doors. There was no sign of the baby-faced lieutenant. He’d probably gone with her dad on Keller’s expedition. Val’s mood took a dive as her thoughts turned to her dad. She remembered the gunfire they’d heard from the other side of the lake during that storm yesterday. Several people had been dragged away from the camp during the confusion caused by the mist. What if her dad had been taken, too?
“Everything okay?” Tony asked, his hand grazing hers.
She shook her head as they grabbed empty trays from a rack and shuffled into the serving line. “I was thinking about my dad,” she replied quietly.
Tony’s mouth twitched. “I’m sure he’s fine.”
“Yeah,” Val replied. She had to believe that. He was her only anchor to home and family on this strange new world. She couldn’t even imagine what she would do if something happened to him. She’d be all alone.
Kendra glanced over her shoulder. She tried to offer a reassuring smile, but it looked uncertain to Val. “Your Dad survived Afghanistan. He can survive Eden. Besides, he was armed to the gills when he left. Whatever they were shooting at yesterday, you can bet they killed their targets.”
Roland nodded along with that. “They probably cooked those beasties up for dinner.”
Val watched as they handed their trays over the serving counters to the kitchen staff. Filet of fish, mashed potatoes, and coleslaw. Val frowned as she passed her tray over. She didn’t like fish, much less the smelly kind. The whole mess hall stank of it.
Moving on, they grabbed stainless steel cups from the beverage counter and filled them with what appeared to be orange juice. Val took a sip as they left the lines to find a table—
And almost choked. The ‘juice’ tasted like it had been made from a cheap no-name brand powder. For a multi-billion dollar spaceship, Hound had been remarkably cheap when it came to stocking it with rations. What she wouldn’t give for a cup of real orange juice, or a Starbucks frappe.
Val sighed as she sat with the others. She began picking at her mashed potatoes. Gritty and powdery, as usual.
“Not hungry?” Tony asked.
Val shrugged in lieu of a reply.
“I know how to fix that.” That was Carrie’s voice. Val looked up to see her pulling out a chair beside Kendra. “You need to keep busy,” she said as she stuffed her mouth with a giant piece of fish.
“Busy with what?” Val asked, setting her fork aside to take a small sip of juice. Her gaze darted to the dreaded bin of food-smeared dishes by the door, and she grimaced. If she had to stay another three hours cleaning dirty trays and pots in this fish-smelling mess hall, she was going to puke her guts out.
Carrie’s eyes followed hers, and she grinned. “Cleaning dishes, what else?”
Val jumped to her feet, her knife and fork clattering from her plate to the table. Her juice sloshed over the sides of the cup. She stood fuming at Carrie, her hands balled into fists. Heads turned around the mess hall to stare at her, their brows furrowed and eyes wide.
Carrie’s cheeks flushed red, and a sheepish smile flickered to her lips. “I was just joking, Val,” she said quietly.
Val blinked and uncurled her fists. “Oh.” She returned to her seat, chagrined by her own outburst.
“But I’m not sure you’re going to like the alternative any better.”
Val arched an eyebrow at her, and took another sip of fake orange juice. “What’s the alternative?”
“School. You and all of the other teens and children will be going to school. Effective immediately.”
“What?” Val sputtered. Kendra frowned and wiped her cheeks on a cloth napkin. “Sorry,” Val said.
“You’re joking,” Tony added.
“I’m afraid not,” Carrie replied.
Val was livid. “What’s the point of school? Everything we knew is gone! People didn’t go to school thousands of years ago when all anyone had to do was grow food and have babies. We’re back to that, and we should get straight to work with everybody else. We should be helping to build the colony, not studying books and writing tests!”
Carrie smiled patiently at her. “Val, we’re not reverting to the Stone Age. The plan for Eden isn’t to undo several millennia of progress. It’s to use that progress to our advantage. Surely you’ve seen the builder drones rolling around with the architects and engineers. That’s just one example. Farming is another. We’re going to farm in greenhouses with all of the latest technology, and we’re still going to need people who know how to do other things. We need lawmakers, politicians, artists, doctors, dentists, software engineers, small business owners... everything you remember from Earth.” Carrie jerked her chin to Tony. “You came from a small town, right?”
Tony nodded. “I mean, we had over thirty thousand people, but yeah, I guess you could call it that.”
“Well, that’s kind of what this will be like: a smaller version of your home. Here, everyone will know each other, and there probably won’t be more than one or two people working in some professions, but we still need to have the same variety of jobs that we had on Earth. Only about thirty percent of us will have to work in agriculture. And besides, this won’t be like the schools you remember. You’ll take personality tests and aptitude tests to determine your ideal careers, and then you’ll start studying the material that relates directly to doing one of those jobs. And then, after about a year or two, depending on the career path you chose, you’ll apprentice under someone to practice your chosen profession.”
Val considered the information with a scowl. She’d been good at the learning part of school, but the rest... Soon she’d be back to dealing with bitchy girls and stupid boys. But maybe Carrie was right. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. “We get to choose our careers and what we’ll be studying?” she asked.
Carrie nodded. “You’ll have a variety of topics to choose from, depending on demand and also your own natural aptitudes.”
“That wasn’t a yes,” Val pointed out.
“Don’t worry,” Carrie soothed. “You’ll see. School isn’t going to be nearly as boring as you remember it.”
Val nodded, poking at the food on her tray.
Tony grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. “At least we’ll have something to do.”
“Yeah,” Val agreed, not looking up from her plate.
* * *
Andew
Andrew felt better in the morning. Cox’s terrified eyes and mud-spattered face still haunted him, but at least he’d put things into context. He’d barely made it out of that creek bed himself, and if he’d pushed on to try and free Cox, they both would have died. And then Val would be an orphan on an alien world.
You can’t save everyo
ne, he told himself.
“Heads up!” Sergeant Harper called from the front of the group. “We’re nearing the location of the missing storage segment.”
Andrew felt relieved with that news. He looked around quickly, checking for signs of the missing section of the ship. They were stalking through dense, shadowy forest. Somehow those blue and purple leaves had all sprung back overnight, hiding the spear-shaped trees and blocking out the light of the pale blue sun. Proxima Centauri was supposed to be a red star, but some of the brainier blue suits had argued that the atmosphere must be filtering the light, making it seem blue. Andrew wasn’t sure what to think about that; he didn’t know enough about the science involved to disagree with them, but he planned to ask Val or Roland about it when he returned to camp.
Up ahead, a glimmer of daylight was sneaking through. A clearing? he wondered.
The light grew brighter as they approached, and soon they were clambering over piles of shattered black tree trunks and branches. A scuffed and beaten cylinder emerged: four stories of gleaming metal sitting atop a shattered pile of trees at the foot of a ragged gray cliff. They’d reached the mountains, and the missing section of Eden.
Keller led them straight up to a familiar pair of extra-wide doors in the base of the segment, then turned and nodded to Sergeant Harper. She began snapping her fingers at people, assigning them to secure the perimeter, while Keller climbed a ladder in the side of the storage section to a control panel beside the doors.
“Miller,” Harper said, waving to him. “On me.”
He nodded and hurried to join her below the ladder that Keller had used.
“We’re going in with Keller,” Harper explained.
Andrew’s gaze tracked up. Keller had one hand on the rungs while the other worked a control panel beside the doors. A metallic thump sounded, followed by a groaning sound, and the doors began sliding open. They were dented, however, and they ground to a stop after only a few seconds.
“Damn it!” Keller muttered.
“Good enough,” Harper said. She walked over to a space just below the doors, climbing a mound of shattered trees to access it. She was too short to reach the rim of the deck above her. Turning to Andrew, she said, “Boost me up.”
He set his feet and cupped his hands below the opening in the doors. She stepped into his hands and leaped to reach the edge of the deck, pulling herself up quickly. Before Andrew could straighten, Keller came over and followed suit, jumping to reach the entrance as well. He wasn’t as fast to pull himself up, but Harper grabbed his pack and dragged him inside.
Harper reached down for him. “Come on, Miller. Your turn.”
Andrew conceded and grabbed her hand and the edge of the deck at the same time. He almost didn’t have to help. Harper hauled him up easily enough.
“Damn, Sergeant, you must live in the gym,” Andrew said.
“Hardly,” she snorted. “Low gravity’s good for something.”
“Copy that,” he replied.
They followed Keller past aisles stacked high with storage crates. Lights flickered overhead. Others were dark and dormant. Some of the stacks of crates were leaning against each other, having fallen over in the crash. Even the deck was buckled in places. They walked past an overturned forklift and reached a bank of elevators. Keller continued on to the ship’s stairwell instead, and yanked the door open to reveal a dark shaft.
“You sure this thing will still fly?” Andrew asked as they climbed, taking the stairs two at a time.
“It had better,” Keller grunted.
They stopped on the eighth landing and the top floor. Keller led them into a long corridor, to a door with the words Control Center painted in big black letters beside the entrance.
He typed a code into the panel. It flashed to life, and a locking bolt thunked aside before the door slid open. More lights snapped on, and Keller went straight to a wall of computer consoles beneath a dark stretch of viewscreens. He hit a series of buttons and switches, and then the screens glowed to life. Shadowy trees appeared, with sheer, craggy gray cliffs peeking between them.
Eric unslung his pack and his rifle and rested them beside the console before pulling out a chair on a folding metal arm. He sat down and began tapping away at the controls.
Andrew stared hard at the cliffs. He remembered how those mountains completely surrounded their valley, like the rim of an old impact crater. Having so many mountains around them helped to explain that flash flood. It also explained the lake in the center of the valley.
Andrew found himself wondering what they’d find on the other side of those mountains. Was Eden as diverse as Earth? Were there other, more habitable areas than the one where they’d landed? For all they knew, there was a literal Garden of Eden waiting on the other side of the mountains.
“How long before we take off?” he asked.
“Can we take off?” Harper added.
“Yes, in about thirty minutes—why?” Eric half turned from the console, his eyes pinching with suspicion.
“Thank God,” Harper muttered through a loud exhalation.
Andrew nodded to the cliffs. “I was thinking about climbing that ridge to see if I can get a look at what’s on the other side.”
Keller shook his head. “There’s no time for that. Besides, weren’t you the one who was saying we should turn around because of those predators? You’ll be the next one taken if you go wandering off by yourself.”
“Well, I was thinking about going with Sergeant Harper.”
Harper raised her eyebrows at that. “Assuming I say yes?” she asked.
“No and no,” Keller replied. “There’s a reason you two came in here with me. We have no way to tell if the hull broke open and let something inside. We need to watch each other’s backs in here just as much as we do out there.”
Andrew raked a hand through sweaty hair. “I guess we can check it out from the air.”
Keller nodded, and Andrew turned to watch the entrance of the control center. His hand flexed restlessly on the grip of his M4. He hoped Val was okay. That mist must have descended on the camp, too, but maybe things hadn’t been as chaotic there.
“Course laid in,” Keller said. “Now we’re just waiting for the thrusters to charge.”
Andrew’s brow furrowed. “To charge? What are they, electric?”
“I have no idea how the technology works, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Andrew smirked. “Hound’s keeping secrets from you, too.”
Keller rose from the controls and heaved his pack and rifle off the deck to sling them over his shoulders again. Avoiding Andrew’s gaze, he nodded to Harper. “Sergeant, let’s move the rest of the team in here. We’re taking off in ten minutes.”
“Copy that,” Harper replied, and began striding for the exit.
Andrew and Keller followed her out, and back down the stairwell to the cargo storage level. Rather than follow Harper to the doors to summon the others, Keller went over to a blank wall with dashed black and yellow emergency markings on it. He reached into a handhold and folded out one of those emergency stations Andrew remembered using in his quarters with Val when Eden had taken off from Earth. This time he noticed that it wasn’t only a bed. It was also a bench, with room enough for two people to occupy it. Keller sat and began buckling in with a different set of straps.
A subtle thrumming began shivering through the deck, and Andrew lowered his gaze to his feet.
“Better secure yourself, Miller,” Keller said.
Andrew glanced over to where Harper was busy pulling the rest of the team inside. “What about the doors? Are we just going to leave them open?”
“The sergeant can close them. Assuming they aren’t stuck,” Keller added in a whisper.
Andrew crossed the deck and sat in the empty seat beside Keller. The other man stared warily at him as he took a seat with his rifle in his lap. He made sure to keep the barrel aimed at the deck, but Keller didn’t seem very happy about it.
“Safety’s on,” he said.
Keller looked away.
Harper came bustling toward them with the rest of the team. She jerked a thumb over her shoulder to the pale slice of daylight spilling in through the doors. “The doors won’t budge,” she said.
“Great,” Keller muttered.
“What?” Harper shouted back, while cupping a hand to her ear. The thrumming of the engines had grown deafening.
“It doesn’t matter!” Keller replied. “We won’t be flying very high. Everybody strap in!”
The rest of the team pulled out more emergency stations from the wall and strapped in. Moments later the ship began to shake violently, and the roaring of the engines grew so loud that it was impossible to think, let alone hear. A sudden gust of hot wind blew in through the open doors, and the entire section of Eden rocketed into the air.
Andrew’s spine compressed and all of the blood drained away from his head, making him feel like he might faint. Then the acceleration eased, and daylight poured through the open doors as the view peeled away from shadowy trees to a spiny black and purple canopy that rolled out to the deep blue of the lake. Beyond that were the gleaming specks of the other sections of Eden arrayed around the camp.
Keller was right about not flying very high. The ship segment never crested above the mountains, and Andrew’s hopes of seeing what was on the other side of them dwindled. Cold wind whistled in through the damaged doors, and he felt tiny droplets of rain freckling his face.
They tipped toward the ground, flying like a helicopter would, and their view became a river of blurry black and purple trees.
Andrew elbowed Keller in the ribs and received a sharp glare. “What now?” Keller asked.
“Why didn’t we stay in the control room?” Andrew asked. He was wondering about those broad viewports, and whether he would have been able to catch a glimpse over the mountains from there.
Keller shrugged. “No reason to.”
“How about piloting this thing, or course-correcting?”
Final Days: Colony Page 17