Stranded

by James Alan Gardner

  When I finally fell asleep, I knew exactly where to find a console Stev and I could use.

  Chapter 5

  It took three days before I felt well enough to work anywhere other than my room. Stev worked from his room, too. It would have been easier if we could have worked in the same place instead of always checking our personal pads for messages, but Stev pointed out that the only way he could have spent the day in my room without Father spending it with us would be to explain the special project.

  I could see his point, sort of. Since we didn’t have any class work, it would be difficult to explain why we needed to work together without explaining what we were working on.

  So I made lists. I planned. When I had finished working my way through the links in the chain of survival for the land, I switched to the freshwater systems: plants, insects, reptiles, fish. By then I was too restless to do nothing more than make lists that I couldn’t turn into reality, so I went hunting for a console.

  Every Restorer team had a main room where they worked. Each team also had an auxiliary room with a handful of consoles.

  I figured that, since Britt and Zashi had stepped down, Britt’s team wouldn’t be using their auxiliary room. Any assistance they were providing to other teams could be done from their main room.

  So that morning, with my head still a little achy and my nerves stretched tight, I stood in front of Britt’s auxiliary room and put my Restorer code into the keypad next to the door. When the door opened, I slipped inside the room.

  I wasn’t alone.

  Britt turned away from one of the consoles. She studied me for a long moment while I tried to think of some way to explain what I was doing there.

  “How are you feeling?” Britt asked quietly.

  “I’m fine,” I replied. Which had been a lot truer before I’d been caught sneaking into an auxiliary room.

  Britt’s eyes were far too knowing, but all she did was smile as she walked to the door. Then she hesitated.

  “I was about the same age you were when I created my unicorn. My horned horse,” she added when I stared at her. “Mine didn’t have the elegant equine tail yours did, and it had a beard under its chin.” She stroked under her own chin to illustrate. “I’d added that bit because my uncle had a beard like that, and I was fond of him.” She smiled again.

  When the door opened, she started to step through, then stopped. “We need to do more than what is correct for this world, Willow. We need to do what is right. This world . . . This world is our true Atonement.”

  When she was gone, I stumbled over to the nearest chair, sat down, and tried to sort out the messages beneath Britt’s words.

  The horned horse. The unicorn.

  One of the projects necessary to qualify for a Restorer team was to create an “oddity”—to take some of the genetic material from the honeycombed chambers and create a new creature that could survive in a natural environment. I suppose the fact that most of the “oddities” couldn’t survive outside the lab was supposed to instill in us a realization of the difference between being a Restorer and being the Blessed All who is the Creator. It also showed that there was no room for ego in the work we were choosing to do. When a creature had to be created in order to fill a niche in an ecosystem, it had to be done with care. A world could only tolerate so much ego indulgence before it rebelled.

  I had created a horned horse. On the surface, there was nothing else that distinguished it from other equine species, but it was different.

  I remember when Britt had been a guest Instructor for one of my classes. She had said that sometimes all the barriers between a person and the Blessed All were flung open. When that happened, it wasn’t something that could be described, but it was something that you recognized. And when that happened, what flowed from you was more than what you could point to on the surface, was more than you could knowingly create.

  I remember that feeling, that dreamlike quality. It had flowed through me the day I created the horned horse. And when the specimen had been grown and all its data inputted into computer simulations to observe how it reacted to its environment, I had no explanation for why things were the way they were.

  In every simulation, wherever a unicorn lived, there was Balance. Somehow, its presence kept omnivores from overfeeding in an area so there was always food for every creature that lived within its territory. Predators wouldn’t touch it while it lived. When it became old and was ready to return to the Blessed All, predators would follow it at a distance and wait. It would finally choose a spot and lie down. As it took its last breath, the horn would fall off. Then the predators would approach the offered flesh. But before any of them consumed so much as a bite, one of them would dig a hole nearby and bury the horn. It didn’t matter what kind of predator it was, whether it traveled in packs or alone. It would bury the horn.

  The Scholars and the head Instructors were more than a little startled when they reviewed my project—and some of them were openly upset. But nothing was said to me, and I was accelerated through a couple of levels of study because of that project.

  Stev, on the other hand, had almost been thrown out of the program because of his bumbler bee.

  It was a bee, a pollinator like other species of bees. Except that it was bigger and looked a little furry. Its wings weren’t in proportion to its body size, but it was still able to fly. It “bumbled” from flower to flower, which is why he’d named it a bumbler bee.

  The Scholars had grilled him mercilessly because of that bee. What research had he used, where had he gotten it, what sealed files had he accessed. When he insisted that he’d followed the project instructions and had come up with the bumbler bee on his own, they didn’t believe him. They acted as though he had found a way to look at the files that contained the Scholars’ Secrets—or had done something equally bad. Because of that project, Stev wasn’t advanced with the rest of his group. And shortly after that, he switched from the Restorer program to the Restorer’s Right Hand program.

  No one at that time or since then has ever explained what it was about the bumbler bee that had gotten him into so much trouble.

  But it left a scar on Stev’s heart that still wasn’t healed.

  Now, thinking about what Britt had said, I wondered how much she’d had to do with my acceleration through the Restorer program—and how much she’d had to do with making sure Stev hadn’t been dismissed from the program altogether.

  I sent a message to Stev’s personal pad, telling him I had a console and where to meet me.

  When he arrived a few minutes later, he looked nervous. “Willow . . . if we get caught in an auxiliary room . . .”

  “We won’t get caught,” I said, then added silently, Britt will see to that. I couldn’t have explained why I was so certain of that, but while I’d been waiting for him, I’d reached two conclusions: Britt knew who had taken responsibility for restoring Balance to the island that had been hers before she had decided to step down as a primary Restorer. And Britt approved.

  —————

  As soon as I accessed the console, there were three polite, but somewhat impatient, requests that I remove my material from the holding tanks.

  “I don’t have any material,” I muttered as I double-checked to make sure the requests were meant for me.

  “Willow.” There was a funny catch in Stev’s voice.

  As we reviewed what was in the holding tanks against the lists we had made, we realized that what we had available was exactly what we needed. Oh, the quantities didn’t quite match Stev’s figures, but close enough. The grass, clover, wildflowers, and groundcover that were at the top of our lists were waiting for us. There was also an unsigned suggestion that we increase the percentage of mature trees.

  “Let’s think of this as a gift,” I said. And, really, that’s what it was. By using what was already the
re, the three days when we couldn’t do anything for the land hadn’t been lost.

  Stev spent the morning working through our lists and sending requests down to the generation tanks for the rest of the “foundation” life-forms—that is, the insects—as well as a variety of shrubs and berry bushes. I spent that time dispersing the seed that was in the holding tanks.

  By the time the midday meal came around, a light rain had begun over the island—just enough to give the seeds the water they needed and also settle them into the earth.

  The food slot, which had been a bit whimsical all morning about what it chose to give us, decided to quit altogether when we tried to get a more substantial meal.

  “Come on,” Stev said, steering me toward the door. “We’ll go to one of the food courts.”

  “But—” I didn’t want to go to a food court, especially the one for the older students. It was going to take a while before I could bear to sit in the same room as Dermi.

  “Your eyes—and the rest of your head—need a break from staring at that console screen all morning,” Stev said firmly.

  What was it about Stev that made me the most annoyed with him when he was right?

  I began to wonder how much of a break my eyes really needed when we met up with Thanie and Whit outside the older students’ food court.

  “Why don’t we go to another food court,” Whit said as he glanced nervously at the other students who were going through the door. “There’s another one a little ways down the corridor.”

  “We can’t go there,” Thanie said in a hushed voice. “That one is used by the Restorer teams.”

  “Well, we can’t go into this one,” Whit snapped.

  So we went to the other food court, feeling very self-conscious when we walked through the door. There were a few glances, a few polite smiles. It wasn’t that we weren’t allowed in this food court. It was just that this was a gathering place for the adults.

  We got our food and chose a table as far away from everyone else as we could get.

  The first bite was enough to remind me that I really was hungry, so I applied myself to my meal. I was halfway through it when Thanie blurted out something that made me lose my appetite.

  “As soon as she heard you were dismissed from the class project, Dermi asked to handle the trees,” Thanie said.

  “Thanie,” Whit said in a warning voice.

  Thanie was too upset to heed the warning. “She used the whole allotment of genetic material to create seedlings.”

  My fork slipped out of my hand. My stomach began to hurt. “So the deer got their food after all,” I said dully.

  “She hasn’t done a thing about bringing the deer population into Balance. By this morning, they’d eaten all the seedlings. Dermi requested another allotment of trees and was told her next allotment wouldn’t be available for another thirty days, so now she’s in a major, major snit.” Thanie paused. “And she blames you.”

  Whit glared at Thanie while Stev said very rude things.

  “Why does she blame me?”

  Finally realizing how angry Stev and Whit were at that moment, Thanie hunched into herself.

  “She blames you because she’s more of a bug-brain than Zerx,” Whit finally growled. “If Dermi had bothered to read the project parameters, she would have known that tree allotments are given out in thirty-day cycles. And what’s worse is Fallah, who’s supposed to be her best friend, keeps encouraging her rash decisions. The results will put our team score right into the waste recycler, but it will sure make Fallah’s individual score look good compared to everyone else’s.”

  “Excuse me,” I said, pushing away from the table. “I—Excuse me.”

  When Stev started to rise, I put my hand on his shoulder to keep him in his chair.

  As I headed for the door, I glanced to my left.

  Zashi was watching me, a concerned look on his face.

  I tried to smile in greeting. I couldn’t quite manage it, so I hurried out of the room.

  I sat in the auxiliary room, glad to be alone for a while. I told myself over and over that the student project was no longer my concern, that those trees were no longer my trees, that I had other work to do—other land to restore to Balance.

  I understood that Balance was give and take, that life-forms lived . . . and life-forms died. I understood that some life-forms became extinct, not because of carelessness or indulgence, but because their time in the world had come to an end. When extinction was a natural part of the ebb and flow of the world, something else would come along to fill that space. It was when a life-form ceased to exist before its time was done that a hole was left in the world. That was when Balance itself could become extinct.

  By the time Stev returned from the food court, I had pretty much convinced myself that one allotment of trees used foolishly wouldn’t really make any difference to this world.

  That night, one of the generation tanks failed completely, and there was nothing any of the techs could do to save the life-forms that had been growing inside it.

  Chapter 6

  Over the next few days, we worked. The grass seed we had initially dispersed had sprouted and was growing well. Some of the flowers had begun to sprout. Following my directives, Stev began accelerating some new plants to the point where they were in flower.

  During that time, two more generation tanks developed problems. The techs, who were now extremely vigilant, immediately sounded the alarm. The engineers were able to stop the system failure on those tanks, but a memo came through from the techs strongly recommending that those two tanks shouldn’t be used at more than 50 percent capacity.

  A lot of ants could be created in a tank that could only function at half capacity, but that recommendation would have a serious effect when it came to larger life-forms.

  During that same time, the problem with the heating system had spread from the corridors into the living quarters. My room would change within the space of an hour from freezing cold to being hot enough to make me sweat.

  Stev didn’t say a thing about the heating system or the problems with the generation tanks, but I knew what he was thinking.

  Our city-ships are very, very old. Our people had been wandering through space for many, many of our generations. There were spaceports that belonged to other races where we could stop and make repairs once in a while. But we couldn’t build new ships to take the place of the old ones because the generation tanks wouldn’t work in any ship but the ones they had been built for, and we no longer had the skill to make new tanks.

  It was as if, for one brief point in our people’s history, we had been given the gift of knowledge to create the piece of technology that would give our people a chance to make Atonement. Once the ships, and the generation tanks, were built, that knowledge faded away, never to return.

  Our engineers could maintain and repair the tanks, and they understood, in theory, how to build them. But they simply couldn’t build one the size and complexity of the original tanks. The engineers have been trying for generations. Sometimes a very small tank was built and actually worked, but it could only produce one small specimen at a time. The results of trying to grow anything larger than a rabbit were ghastly. And trying to grow more than one specimen of anything in one of those tanks . . .

  Sometimes one healthy specimen survived. Sometimes.

  Everything has a life span. Even a ship.

  Slowly, one by one, our city-ships have been dying.

  We seldom meet another ship that belongs to our people. When we do, we travel together for a while. These rare meetings are the only way for us to bring new blood into our population. Sometimes people want to leave their own city-ship because of some unhappiness in their lives. Some people leave because they fall in love, and one partner is willing to give up family and friends to be with the other.r />
  It takes courage and deep feelings to make such a choice because the chances are very slim that they’ll ever meet up again with the city-ship that had once been home.

  And then there are the survivors.

  I was barely old enough at the time to remember when our ship picked up a weak distress call from a sister ship. It took weeks to reach it, despite the fact that we had headed for it with all possible speed.

  When we got there, we noticed that the small shuttle ships were missing, and there was some speculation that a few people had tried to use them to escape. But shuttle ships, which were capable of transporting us between one ship and another, were not meant for long journeys. There had been no world within range that they could have reached.

  The people of that ship had done what they could. What little power was left had been channeled to the honeycomb chambers that held the genetic material—and it had been channeled to the cryotubes. These tubes usually stored specimens that had been carefully grown so that fresh genetic material could be added to the honeycomb chambers to replace material that had become too old to be viable.

  When the team from our ship had gone over to look for any sign of life, they had found the two hundred cryotubes filled with children. Only eight of those tubes were still functioning. Those eight children were brought to our ship.

  One of them was Stev.

  So I didn’t offer him assurances neither of us could believe. We just did the work while we could.

  —————

  I discovered the problem in the honeycomb chambers when I put in my request for bees. A few minutes after I sent the request, the console chimed that I had an urgent message.

  IF NOT USED IMMEDIATELY, THERE MAY NOT BE ENOUGH VIABLE MATERIAL AVAILABLE TO PRODUCE REQUESTED NUMBER OF SPECIMENS.

  Muttering to myself, I spent close to an hour working my way through the command series that would allow me to view the honeycomb chambers that stored the genetic material.