Serendipity

by Dennis Ingram

  “Over here! Hurry!”

  Bethany and Yuri jumped to their feet, a question in their eyes.

  “Her body is gone,” Veronika said, all business again, weariness forgotten. “We’ll take just the head.”

  “He must never know.” Veronika looked around at the others, her eyes fierce. The results of their macabre handiwork lay in front of them. Grace’s headless corpse lay on the operating table and the dewar brought by Josh and Nigel sat on a nearby bench.

  “But … but, doesn’t he have a right to know?” Bethany asked.

  Veronika shook her head. “I’m not putting him through this again. We’re not putting him through it.” She looked at Josh and Nigel, and they both nodded agreement.

  “You don’t know David as we do,” Nigel said. “He’s the most loyal person you can imagine. He’ll never give up on anyone if he thinks they’re worth it. He always has your back.”

  “David’s tortured himself these last few months,” Veronika said. “He hid it well, but he didn’t fool me. Every day he went to see her, hoping against all hope we could bring her back. He wouldn’t give up, couldn’t say goodbye, and he suffered for it. I won’t see that happen again.”

  She looked around the little group, her jaw set. “Let me be very clear. No one – no one – has ever come back from cryogenic freezing. We may never revive Grace.” Her eyes dropped. “She is dead,” she said, looking up again. “Dead. Let David grieve and let him have peace.”

  She turned to Josh and Nigel and they both nodded. “We’ll never tell,” Nigel said, looking at Josh. “Never,” Josh said. All eyes switched to Bethany and Yuri.

  “Promise me,” Veronika said. “Promise me you will never tell David. No one outside of this room can ever know.”

  Bethany and Yuri exchanged a look, then turned back to Veronika. Bethany nodded, wiping a tear away from one cheek. “OK,” she said. “You’re right. He deserves a break.” She looked at Yuri, who glanced at Grace’s body and let out a long, shuddering sigh. “Agreed,” he said. “This never happened.”

  Nigel walked over to the dewar. “We’ll take this back to our lab. Once we get new stasis chambers up and running, we’ll put her in there, for as long as it takes.”

  Veronika watched them as they gathered up Grace’s head and made their way through the door, taking care not to bump the dewar.

  Only then did it register that one of their number was missing.

  “Where’s Silvia?” she asked.

  Bethany and Yuri’s blank faces told her all she needed to know.

  10

  Heidi saw them come.

  She had gone down to Broken Hill with Nathalie and Elizabeth to help with John’s rescue capsule. While the other two women worked to produce more rocket fuel in the chemical plant, Heidi slipped outside for a quick break. She saw the shuttle arrive, flanked by two skimmers. Seeing multiple aircraft flying together was unusual enough to raise her suspicions. Seeing black-clad figures pouring from the shuttle as soon as it landed told her all she needed to know.

  She ran back inside. “We have to leave, now!”

  Nathalie and Elizabeth looked up, eyes wide. Heidi watched a storm change on Nathalie’s face – she wasn’t willing to let anything stand in the way of her quest to reclaim John.

  “We’re being invaded,” Heidi said. “We have to go!”

  Nathalie wavered as she processed the news, frowning. “Carla?”

  “Who else? I didn’t see her, but who else could it be?”

  Heidi ran past, heading for the office area at the back. “Come on, let’s go!”

  “Why?” Elizabeth asked as they ran. “Why is she doing this again?”

  Nathalie snorted. “Some people are never happy unless they are in control.”

  Heidi slammed her way into the office and flung open the cupboards, tossing water bottles and battery packs at her two companions. “Take what you can, we don’t have long!”

  Nathalie’s head snapped around as the front doors crashed open. “They’re here!”

  “Scheisse!” Heidi said, a battery pack clattering to the floor. “That’s enough! Go, go!”

  She led the way to the door, opening it and gesturing for Nathalie and Elizabeth to go first. The sound of running feet hurried them on their way.

  Out back of the chemical plant lay piles of mining tailings. Heidi led them away from the building toward them, expecting a bullet in her back at any second.

  They ran as hard as they could, a water bottle falling from the bundle in Elizabeth’s arms. They made it to the first mound, breath ragged in their throats and masks cloudy with condensation.

  “Did they see us?” Elizabeth asked, leaning forward with her hands on knees, catching her breath. “Did they?”

  Heidi shook her head. “I don’t think so. If they did, we’d know about it.”

  Nathalie wrung her hands, and Heidi knew she was thinking of John. She reached out to squeeze her shoulder. “Don’t worry. He’s safe enough up there. As soon as we get ourselves out of this, we’ll go get him.”

  Nathalie shot her a pained stare, her fists clenching. Heidi understood. Rescuing John had become her obsession. Nathalie drew a long shuddering breath, closing her eyes. She let it out and turned to Elizabeth, an uncertain smile on her face.

  “It’ll be OK, you’ll see. We have water and power for our masks. We’ll hide out here until dark then go and find out what’s happening.”

  *SNAP*

  John twitched as his stasis field dissolved, cursing as he hit the ground. Hope’s first-generation stasis fields weren’t too kind to people when they woke up, the sensation a lot like an electric shock. Also, Hope had spun the ship up. He’d gone into stasis in zero gravity floating above the floor. Now he found himself on the floor.

  “Hope? When am I?”

  The door hissed open. “You have been in stasis for two days, Papa.”

  “What’s happened? Why did you wake me?”

  “A resupply mission has arrived.”

  John’s pulse quickened. “Already? Has a capsule docked?”

  “Yes, port side.”

  John regained his feet and shuffled toward the door. “Have you opened it? What’s inside?”

  “I have not. We have lost our communications link to the colony. I cannot confirm the contents.”

  Time seemed to slow down as John pulled himself up the ladder to the core. It was difficult for his hunger-wracked body. He had no energy to spare, and even in the low gravity the journey almost defeated him. He ignored the gouged and broken walls where the maintenance bot had forced its way into the stasis chamber.

  “They must have sent food. And memory for you. That’s what the first one had.”

  “That would be logical.”

  John reached the core and kicked off toward the cargo hold. The anticipation almost killed him as he dreamed of food again. He batted at the walls as he drifted, trying to get there faster. The fifty meters to the cargo hold seemed like infinity. At last he banged into the hatch, paying no mind to the pain. He pulled himself through and set off again. Another thirty meters to go, sliding past the cargo hold hatches. He saw a green glow in the distance, something he hadn’t seen since they left Earth all those years ago – the docking port indicator lights.

  He wasted no time in process when he arrived, his hands scrabbling to stop his forward momentum. He took a quick glance through the port to confirm the capsule was there then worked the controls to open the airlock.

  The hatch swung in with a hiss of equalizing pressure, to reveal a short connecting tunnel. John levered himself in and accessed the capsule’s controls. It had the same standard hatch the shuttles used and he soon had it open.

  The smell hit him first. He knew it in an instant and his mouth watered in response.

  Fresh-baked bread.

  He pulled himself inside, frantic now, his stomach reminding him with a growl it hadn’t seen a square meal for days. John lost himself in the urgency of sear
ching for the bread.

  The inside of the capsule was a mess. No neat stacks of cargo modules; instead, a haphazard collection of bags and boxes held down with straps and cargo nets. A question tickled the back of his mind, but his subconscious screamed at him to find food, now.

  He let his nose guide him to a large blue sack pinned under a cargo net. His hands shook as he released one corner of the net and opened the sack. A small sound escaped his mouth as he retrieved a brown paper bag. The aroma beckoned, hitting him with a wave of baked goodness. He tore the bag open to find a loaf of full-grain bread, the crust firm under his hands. John ripped a heel from the end of the loaf and his mouth closed on the bread, his teeth crunching through the thick crust, the soft inside of the loaf filling his mouth. He closed his eyes, overwhelmed by the sensation. His stomach sent another urgent reminder, and he chewed and swallowed, chewed and swallowed, his actions becoming more and more urgent.

  A long time passed before he noticed a voice trying to catch his attention.

  “Father! John! Listen to me!”

  “Mmmphf?”

  “Father, you must stop eating!”

  John swallowed and stopped chewing. “Why?”

  “Father, you must stop. It is dangerous to eat too much food so soon after starvation.”

  John’s world expanded beyond the half-demolished loaf of bread and took in his surroundings again. During his rapture he’d lost his anchor and drifted in the capsule, surrounded by a halo of breadcrumbs.

  He realized Hope was right. He also realized something else: for the first time in weeks, he no longer felt hungry. “Ahhhh.” He closed his eyes and basked in contentment.

  “Father?”

  John opened his eyes and smiled. “Yes, Hope?”

  “Are you OK?”

  John’s smiled widened. “Hope, I can honestly say I can’t remember when I last felt so good.”

  Darkness fell. The three women waited for the stars to trail across the heavens. Heidi’s eyes had wandered, as they always did, looking for a pale yellow star on the northern horizon.

  “Look,” she said, pointing. “There it is. Sol.”

  Elizabeth peered at the star Heidi pointed to, her worries forgotten for a moment. “That little yellow one? Between those two brighter ones?”

  “That’s it. That’s where we’re from.”

  “I am the astronomer, oui?” Nathalie said.

  Heidi felt her lips curve into a smile. “Everyone should know where Earth is.”

  “Do you want to go back?” Elizabeth asked, her eyes still on the distant yellow star.

  Heidi shook her head. “No. This is home now. Besides, Earth wasn’t a nice place when we left.”

  Silence fell, then Elizabeth spoke again. “I’d like to go. To see what it’s like. People still live there, don’t they?”

  “Oh yes,” Heidi said. “Some must have survived the war. On Mars, too.”

  “That’s right,” Elizabeth said, enthusiasm warming her voice. “There’s two planets there. I’d like to see them both.”

  “Tau Ceti has planets, too,” Nathalie said. “More than Sol has. We can visit them. That would be easier than going to Earth.”

  “It wouldn’t be the same,” Elizabeth said. “It wouldn’t be Earth.”

  Nathalie stood up and stretched. “Be careful what you wish for, ma fille. The grass might look greener on the other side of the fence, but often it’s not.”

  Heidi smiled as she imagined the frown on Elizabeth’s face. Elizabeth held nothing back once she decided what she wanted.

  “Perhaps one day we will go back,” she said, “after we rescue John and stop the asteroid and build a new ship. But right now, we need to find out what they are doing in there.”

  They all turned toward the factory. The sound of machinery had echoed non-stop across the otherwise quiet landscape ever since Carla and her supporters had arrived. Whatever they did in there, it couldn’t be good.

  “Oh, God. Why didn’t I listen to you?” John said. He gripped the sides of the toilet bowl and leaned forward to retch again.

  “I understand, Father. Extreme organic desires drove you to replenish your energy levels.”

  “Oh, my guts, my poor, poor guts.”

  After his initial rhapsody with the bread, John had set to and unloaded much of the material on the capsule. There wasn’t as much food as he’d expected – only enough to sustain him for another month, with careful use. They had also sent memory for Hope, although not as much as he’d thought they might.

  Despite Hope’s warning, he hadn’t been able to resist eating again. There were boxes of energy bars, but the blue sack held the most temptation. It looked as if someone had swept through a pantry and thrown whatever they found into the sack. For John it held a cornucopia of delights. When he got back to the galley, he pulled out a wheel of cheese. His mouth watered and he couldn’t resist tucking in, setting his deprived taste buds dancing. Then there’d been the apple. The crunch as he bit into it was music to his ears, the sharp acid on his tongue another shot to the senses. John devoured it, juice running down his chin as he sated his hunger.

  Less than an hour later his body informed him it wasn’t ready for that much fresh food after all. Since then, he’d spent his time in the head, losing his lunch.

  “This is a good outcome.”

  John shook his head, his eyebrows drawn together. “How? How can this be good?”

  “You could have made yourself ill.”

  “Who on earth programmed your sense of humor?”

  Hope either didn’t understand or let it slide. “Starved humans can die if they eat too much, too soon. It’s good you are losing the food before it causes any lasting damage.”

  “Oh, lucky, lucky me.”

  “I’ve analyzed the contents of the capsule and devised a program of vitamin and protein supplements to bring you back to full health in a matter of days. Then you can eat normally again. You can start now, if you wish.”

  John slumped against the wall of the head. “Not just now. Maybe later.”

  They made their way to the manufacturing plant before first light, slipping through a side door of the cavernous building.

  They hadn’t been sure Carla would be there, but spotted her in her distinctive black tunic and boots, hair pulled back into a ponytail. Despite the warm climate and sun-filled days, her skin remained pale.

  It also didn’t take long to discover what they were up to. They were manufacturing guns – lots of guns. A pile of assault rifles and hand guns lay on a table near the main door, together with ammunition clips.

  “Mon Dieu,” Nathalie said. “They must be planning to invade Haven!”

  Heidi’s lips made a thin line. “We have to warn them,” she said, keeping her voice low.

  The three women exchanged glances, all of them understanding the difficulty of that task.

  “They must have locked everyone who was here away somewhere,” Heidi said. “In an outbuilding most likely.”

  “What will happen to them?”

  Heidi shrugged. “I don’t think they’d hurt them unless they tried something. Human life is too precious here. They’ll expect them to fall into line once they have control.”

  Elizabeth clenched her jaw. “We have to stop them!”

  Nathalie looked at her, eyes wide, and Heidi smothered a grin. On the outside, Nathalie was passionate and Elizabeth calm, but scratch the surface of the daughter and the mother could be found.

  Nathalie reached for Elizabeth’s arm, but she stood and ran toward another fabricator, closer to the guns.

  “Elizabeth!” Nathalie said, her voice a fierce whisper. “Come back!”

  Elizabeth shook her head, turning to scan the room ahead of her.

  Heidi squeaked as Nathalie gripped her arm, fingers biting into her flesh. Nathalie turned to her, eyes wide.

  “We have to stop her!”

  “Too late for that. The best we can do now is help her.”
/>   They both turned back to watch as Elizabeth broke cover and ran forward to the next machine, taking cover once more.

  Nathalie sighed, then stood to follow her errant daughter, Heidi close behind.

  A good night’s sleep and a long hot shower did a lot to restore John’s good humor. He started on the vitamins and managed to take two bites of a protein bar for breakfast and keep it down.

  Then he emptied the rest of the capsule, taking stock of what they had.

  He had the blue sack of fresh foods. He divided these into two – one part went into the fridge, the other into the remaining stasis chamber to keep it fresh. The boxes contained food bars, vitamins, and supplements, and even a little candy. These would be his food for the next few days as he revived his tortured digestive system.

  There was memory for Hope, although she surprised and delighted him with her new ability to forget. Not only had her memory growth halted, it continued to shrink as she became more and more confident.

  “I’ve learned to remember like a human,” she said, “except better. Now I delete information I no longer need. I compress memories I don’t need often and only remember that once I had them. Now I have enough memory for decades, using what I have now.”

  John connected the new memory, anyway. “It never hurts to have backups.”

  The lack of contact with the ground worried him. He couldn’t think why this should be.

  “What now?” Nathalie asked. The three of them hid behind a stack of aluminum siding intended for more buildings in Haven.

  Elizabeth looked at her, oblivious to the fact she, the youngest of them, had assumed the role of leader. She only thought of what must be done. “The guns,” she said. “Let’s get some. Then we can try for the office and contact Haven.”

  Nathalie rubbed the back of her neck and shot a quick glance around the corner of their hiding place. Her eyes sought Heidi’s.

  “It’s better than waiting here,” Heidi said. “We have to do something.”

  Nathalie stared at her hands then gave a curt nod. “D’accord. Let’s get it over with.”