The defendants stood, mouths open. A clamor of conversation broke out in the audience as people tried to make sense of what just happened.
This halted when David banged the table with his gavel.
“One hundred years from now, Serendipity will be home to millions. When you are revived – and you won’t be revived together – you will find yourself one of many. I will not presume to decide what punishment or treatment that society will deem appropriate for your crimes, so I will defer final sentencing to them. You will serve out the punishment our future society decides is appropriate. They will help you learn their customs and find a place for you. You will be free to enjoy a life as long as our technology can provide, and as long as you choose to accept.”
He turned to Ernie and Nigel. “Please escort them to the stasis suite.”
“Now? You’re doing it now?” Sheldon asked, startled.
David nodded.
“But what about the asteroid? What about Doom? You’re just going to leave us to rot in stasis while that thing comes for us?”
“We’ve got a lot to do, and we have no time to waste dealing with criminals. You’ve got a better chance of surviving this if you are out of our way so we can focus on stopping it.”
“I knew it! A death sentence!” he said, struggling to break away from Ernie, who had one big hand clamped on his upper arm.
“You can’t do this! You can’t leave us there to die!”
“Take them away,” David said, the tone of his voice signaling his patience had come to an end.
“With pleasure,” Ernie said, pushing Sheldon in the back. “Come on, you. Just be glad you get any chance at all after what you did.”
Heads bowed against a somber overcast sky.
They’d interred the remains of Carla, and those of her followers who’d died in the battle for Haven, with little ceremony yesterday. They were now fertilizer for the forests growing to the north.
Contributing in death as they hadn’t in life, David thought, his mood dark.
He stood waiting, trying not to think of Grace’s body in the ground alongside Vasily’s. Joyce Abramovich stood next to him, clearly lost in her own thoughts.
They decided to bury them at Landfall. It had changed in the years since the day they’d first set foot on Serendipity after their long and hazardous journey from Earth. They’d found time to build a long rock wall in front of the area where they first landed, protecting it from the river below. A stone monument now stood on their original landing spot. Three permanent flag poles even now flew the Stars and Stripes, the gold stars on blue of the European Union, and the flag of the Russian Federation.
David lifted his eyes to the flags. They’d never designed one of their own, he realized. They’d never seen the need to identify themselves like that. Perhaps they hoped they wouldn’t need one, that they would consign the tribal nationalism of Earth to history.
“We commit the bodies of our loved ones to the ground,” said Ernie, charged with saying the words for the ceremony, drawing on his experiences as a lay preacher.
“Earth to earth; ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Lord bless them and keep them, the Lord make his face to shine upon them and be gracious unto them and give them peace. Amen.”
“Amen,” the congregation echoed. David didn’t know what they believed – whether they thought God would claim his precious Grace or not. Even he didn’t know. But the familiar words brought comfort, and he felt grateful to Ernie.
Behind the monument, they’d prepared a place, a garden surrounded by trees. A peaceful place where the dust of far-off Earth would mingle with the soil of Serendipity.
Ernie invited them to come forward, offering David and Joyce a small scoop. David put his aside and instead dug his hands into the fresh soil. Joyce hesitated a moment then bent one knee to do the same. Together they stood and regarded the final resting places of their beloved wife and husband.
The soil thumped as it landed on top of the coffins.
Goodbye my love. I’ll come back, as soon as we deal with the asteroid, I promise. We’ll talk, you and me.
David turned and offered his hand to Joyce, and together they walked away, each leaving a piece of their heart behind.
The flags snapped in the breeze.
Elizabeth watched David and Joyce as they sat together, silhouetted against the light from the largest of Haven’s moons filtering through the cavern windows.
She struggled to constrain the emotions seething and pulsing through her tortured heart. In the space of only two months she’d suffered fear at the hands of Edward’s henchmen and gutting despair from witnessing Grace’s mortal injury. There’d been the fierce pride at being included in the rescue mission to recover the crew of the Inspiration, her chance to shine, to work with David as an equal. Pride destroyed by the loss of her father. After Grace’s shooting she hadn’t thought it would be possible to feel worse, but she’d found the true bottom of despair when her father had sacrificed himself to save her. She couldn’t even take the time to grieve, as first the shuttle needed to be guided home.
Her mother opened the wound once more as she bared her own shattered soul. All of this supplanted with an astonished, uplifting joy when John had staged his impossible comeback.
That, too, had soured. She seemed doomed to suffer as her father starved in orbit and she’d watched him waste away. And as her luck would have it, just as Hope granted her a reprieve, Carla had struck, ending Grace’s life and launching her attack.
But out of despair came something new. When she’d run with Nathalie and Heidi to avoid capture, she’d felt excitement, not fear. When she’d led the way back to the manufacturing plant, she’d felt exhilaration, not fear. When they’d chased Carla’s henchmen into the mine, she’d felt the thrill of the chase, not fear. When she’d fought against them, she’d felt determination, not fear.
What had happened to her? Is this what David felt when he went into battle? Did his blood sing as hers did? Did it? Could it be so?
Her eyes sought them out again, sitting together by the edge of the lake. Joyce’s hand rested on top of David’s and they were deep in conversation.
As she watched them those unwanted emotions came bubbling up again. She didn’t even notice her hands gripping the grass beneath where she sat. Her nails bit into the earth as she clenched her hands into fists, trying to understand.
Why? Why her, why now?
It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair.
Joyce placed her hand on top of David’s. It was a beautiful night. It always was inside the cavern, but tonight the clear air gave them a spectacular view down to Crater Lake. Although this was the most popular lookout in Haven, tonight they had it to themselves – no one wanted to disturb them.
They sat on the east side of the lake, looking toward the huge windows sealing the front of the cavern. Beyond the windows, the land sloped down toward Lake Cartier. They’d sculpted their planting to leave a clear view across Crater Lake, through the windows to the much larger lake beyond.
The big moon sank into the horizon and turned the rippled waters of Lake Cartier to gold and the calm waters of Crater Lake to silver.
“People will talk.”
David snorted. “Let them.”
Joyce smiled and squeezed his hand. “I’m about thirty years older than you, subjective.”
“As if that matters anymore.”
“True.”
With the new rejuvenation therapies, age difference no longer mattered from a physical point of view. No one understood what that meant for their future lifespans, but they could count on many more years than they’d expected only a month ago.
“But none of that really matters anyway, does it?” Joyce asked, her eyes seeking his.
David sighed. “No, I guess not. You feel it too, don’t you?”
Joyce nodded. “I do. We’re not who we used to be, are we?”
David shook his head. “Nor will we ever be again. If I could turn
back time …”
“You wouldn’t.”
David’s head snapped around.
Joyce brushed a fleck of dust off his collar and looked him in the eyes. “We’re not built that way, David. We always move forward. No matter what trials we’ve suffered in life, we must always move forward.”
David fell silent, not willing to answer.
“She’ll never really die, not while you remember her in here,” Joyce said, placing a hand on his heart. “And Vasily will never die for me, not while I remember him in my own heart.”
David nodded. “You always were more sensible than me.”
Joyce smiled. “Well, you haven’t done too badly in that department, it seems to me.”
“We’ll always be friends, though, right?”
“Of course,” Joyce replied. “I have a feeling you and I will turn out to be the best friends of all.”
David turned his head and watched the far-off play of the moonlight on water. His hand squeezed Joyce’s, and for a moment he indulged himself and allowed some comfort to creep into his soul.
Yes, he thought. I think she just may be right.
“So is that all?” John asked. He, Ernie, and their colleagues and apprentices had been working non-stop. “I know you said three months,” John told Ernie, “but three months is too long. You need to find a way to do it faster.”
They were taking a rare break and stood looking out of the office window at the rugged landscape of Broken Hill.
They had wasted no effort terraforming their mining site. The setting sun cast long shadows, making the rocky soil even redder than usual. It looks like Mars, John thought. Only the clumps of scrub grass somehow clinging to life around the edges of the site spoiled the illusion. John shook his head as he reflected on what the grass represented. Not only did the seeds manage to grow in a hostile environment here, they must have blown in the wind or piggybacked on the outside of one of their craft. Life, it seemed, always found a way. He wondered whether any of it could survive the approaching Doom.
Ernie looked up at John in surprise. “All?”
“All the new stuff,” John replied, taking a swallow of his coffee.
“New fabricators and smart materials aren’t enough?” Ernie joked. “The ability for one man to make almost anything at the push of a button?”
John wrinkled his nose a little. “One reason I signed on for this mission was the chance to get my hands dirty, a chance to do real work. When I left Earth, it was already push button this, push button that. All design, no make.”
Ernie nodded. “I hear you. We’ve pretty much perfected that with these new machines. There’s no need for us to build much of anything, anymore.”
John shook his head. “I know it’s what we need, don’t get me wrong. With this new plant and the human eggs and all, we can fill this world with people and build ships to take ourselves wherever we want. I can actually see how we can get ourselves back to Earth, which to be honest I never really could before.” He smiled. “I’ve never said that to David – he’s always hoped we could go back and save the world.”
He turned to look through the window. “I can’t help wishing for simpler times, though, when I could have a hope of fixing something when it broke.”
“Yeah,” Ernie said, gazing at the scenery. “I know what you mean, a man likes to work with his hands.”
They continued to watch the setting sun, lost in their dreams. Meanwhile, behind them in the manufacturing plant, their machines continued to make the machines that would make them the machines that could save their world.
“It’s like magic.” Kurt Thompson’s eyes were wide as he watched the new fabrication plant in operation. He and the other engineering apprentices stood on the low ridge shielding Broken Hill from the southern winds, watching the plant at work.
At one end, a continuous line of robots snaked out of the mine shafts, bearing ore like a line of mechanized ants, depositing it in the maw of a massive processing building.
Drones flew in from all directions, likewise bearing raw materials from other sites, materials not found at Broken Hill.
Before their eyes more drones appeared at the other end of the plant, lifting off and darting away. These did not come from a pool of worker drones. They were fabricated as they watched, and dispatched to help feed the ravenous appetites of their new machines.
Heidi smiled at Kurt’s statement. “There’s an old saying on Earth,” she said. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Even she had difficulty believing just how fast things moved now. Ernie had told them, but she just hadn’t believed. She shivered. She came from a world with similar technology, but there was still something creepy about watching machines work without human help.
“I just don’t get how they turn rocks into machines so fast,” Vasily Miller said, shaking his head. “It doesn’t seem possible. And those drones and other things that come out – they’re all perfect. No seams, screws, or anything. They look like they were grown, not built.”
Heidi shaded her eyes as she squinted at the plant. Over in the distance, the plant itself changed. Ever-larger buildings grew out of the ground in an organic fashion. She didn’t know if “building” was the right word, as the buildings and the machines were as one now. The latest structure going up, larger than most hangers had been at the aerospace fields back on Earth, would produce their new shuttle.
“It isn’t magic,” she said. “Everything you see down there is built on technology we’ve developed over many years. The principles of creating and shaping materials haven’t changed. Mining processes are the same. Chemical processes are the same. Inside the fabricators are modules to bend, drill, and mill metals as we always have. The same old additive manufacturing, what we used to call 3D printing in the old days, is still there. The difference is the machines are smaller, faster, and better integrated than ever before. Our new additive manufacturing can build components down to the molecular level. We can make composite materials that transition from one material to another. Everything is integrated. There are no electronics and cabling because it’s fabricated into the same materials making the walls.”
“What does it mean for us?” Mia asked. “All those things you and John have taught us, what use are they now?”
Heidi shook her head. “Welcome to the world we knew on Earth. Nothing stands still in technology, it always changes. We cannot learn something and rely on that knowledge for the rest of our lives. It’s always changing, so we must be always learning.”
Mia looked thoughtful as she turned again to the scene below. “So … we must learn how to use … that?” she said, pointing to the plant below.
Heidi, nodded, smiling. “You will become designers, not builders.” She placed one hand on her shoulder. “It will be OK, you will see.”
“Is there anything left to design?” Kurt asked. “All these things … what’s left for us?”
“Oh yes,” Heidi said. “We have a large library of patterns from Earth, but there are many things left to do.”
“Like what?”
Heidi scratched a cheek. “Well, there are patterns for shuttles, starships, and houses. There aren’t many for boats, though. And don’t forget fashion.”
“Fashion? What does that have to do with engineering?” Vasily asked.
“Just because we have a design for a house doesn’t mean we will only ever build one type of house, does it?” Heidi asked.
Vasily shook his head. “I guess not. You mean we will need to design more?”
“Of course. We still need architects and engineers. You will see.”
“I kind of liked building,” Kurt said. “I’ll miss it.”
Heidi smiled again. “You can still do it.”
Everyone looked at her at once. “Really? Why? How?” Kurt asked.
“It’s what we called a hobby, on Earth,” Heidi said. “Just because a machine can make everything you need doesn’t mean
you can’t build a steam engine in your garage.”
“Steam engine?” Mia asked, her brow furrowing. “What’s that?”
“And what’s a garage?” Kurt asked.
Heidi laughed. “That might be the first thing we build,” she said, looking at Kurt. “After all, where will you keep your steam engines without a garage?”
14
In the following weeks, Haven and its inhabitants healed. Physical wounds disappeared, aided by rest and technology. The new skylight left Haven a brighter, although warmer place. Heidi and her team added three chiller units to compensate. John gained weight and reverted to his usual cheerful self. He and his apprentices used the rubble below the skylight to build walls for a remembrance garden. Everyone pitched in to bring soil and plant roses and herbs to create a quiet and fragrant retreat.
Nigel, with help from Bethany, kept busy working on the invisible wounds – those of the mind. They spoke to everyone at least once and continued to meet with those needing more counseling, including David, despite his attempts to put the others first.
Ernie and his team prepared for another rocket launch. The first stage of the rocket that carried John’s rescue capsule had returned to the launch site and landed without incident. They had recovered the capsule from Broken Hill and refurbished it. However, the second stage had not survived, so they worked to build another. Their efforts may have been in vain, though, as John thought their new shuttle would be ready soon. It would be capable of making orbit despite the low oxygen content of the atmosphere, and would give them a base for their mission to divert Doom.
David called a council meeting to discuss their plans. “We need to involve everyone,” he told his fellow council members. “It’s not so hard to consult everyone now.”
The eyes of the others on the council dropped as they reflected. Before Carla’s abortive coup, their population stood at one hundred and forty. Eight original colonists and their twenty-five children. One hundred and ten new arrivals on the Inspiration, less Edward, Roberto, and Jake.
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