Vale of Stars

by Sean O'Brien

  Gil had met the Mussards before as well, and after a few pleasantries with them, turned back to Jene.

  “I’ve checked your recreation ration status, Doctor,” he said with a touch of formality tinged with embarrassment, “and you have more than enough accrued for a whole day here. The Mussards, though….” He did not look at them. Such rationing was necessary in Ship—recreational resources such as the orchard were doled out by the Council in a strict regimen. The Halfners, as important medical personnel, received a greater allowance than Frank and his family. It was an arrangement that Jene had never liked.

  Jene kept her eyes away from Frank as she muttered to Gil, “Take it out of ours, Gil.”

  Had Gil Tanassarian followed procedure, he would have had to refuse Jene’s offer. Ration sharing was not allowed for any reason. The Council had decided such activity would result in class warfare. But Gil was a man of compassion. He looked down at the dirt and kicked it to and fro a bit.

  “Sure, Jene. I’ll make it work somehow.” He looked up at the Mussards and found Wendy’s wide eyes. Gil smiled down at her and swung the gate open. “You folks have a good time.”

  Kuarta and Wendy had thanked him hurriedly and dashed off down the path into the woods. Kuarta stopped on her way to the nearest tree and looked back at the adults quizzically, as if she suspected something had happened back at the gate that she did not understand. For a moment, she appeared to be preparing to speak, but the moment passed and she hurried to join her friend in the sunrod-dappled fields of the orchard.

  The adults strolled behind them, talking pointedly of nothing in particular. There was an almost tangible feeling of tension, a curtain that could be felt but not seen, separating the two families. There was no money in Ship, but ration privileges served the same purpose. There were no aristocrats, but there was a Council that had grown increasingly aloof. Ship society had been carefully engineered to near-perfect socialism, but recently, Jene had noticed a subtle stratification. She could not help but realize that her place was uncomfortably high in the almost-invisible hierarchy of Ship’s social classes.

  The pair of children, with their attendant parents in tow, soon arrived at a clearing, where the adults spread out their picnic supplies and settled down for a leisurely meal.

  “Frank tells me you think you’ll be ready with the immunizations soon,” Lena said when the families had finished eating.

  “Yes, I think so,” Jene answered. “It’s going very smoothly.”

  “Who’s still left?” Frank asked, and Jene thought she could detect tension in the question.

  “Just some people who had some unusual blood chemistry. The vaccines have to be individually tailored, you know.”

  “Any Flight Crew?”

  Jene stared at him before answering. “No, they refused to be immunized.”

  “What?” Frank and Lena asked almost simultaneously.

  “We asked for their blood chemistry when we began the project. At first, they refused to send us anything, then they told us that immunization was not necessary for them.”

  “Did they say why?” Frank leaned forward.

  “Nothing. But we’re not going to force it on them. They’ve always been able to take care of themselves”—she cast an involuntary glance at Renold, who sat impassively nearby—“and we assume they will do so in this case as well.”

  There was considerable silence before Lena found her voice. For generations, Flight Crew had been a forgotten element of Ship life—now, four months from their destination and with Ship beginning its deceleration, the Flight Crew had become the most important group in Ship. Their welfare was immutably wedded to the welfare of every inhabitant of Ship.

  “What about the Council?” Lena asked.

  “We did them first,” Jene answered, not bothering to hide the venom in her voice.

  “Why?” Frank asked.

  “It was at their request.”

  Lene snorted. “Their order, you mean. They got the first shots? Do they think they are better than we are down here in Ship?”

  Jene shrugged. She did not trust herself to speak; she had thought the same thing months ago when the directive from Council had come down. If she started talking about it, she would undoubtedly lose control of her bitterness, and she did not want Kuarta to see that. Kuarta did not need to see her mother openly challenge the supreme authority in Ship.

  “What if we run out of time or vaccine?” Lena asked, the beginnings of panic entering her voice. “What if you have to hurry and you miss someone?”

  Jene tried to smile reassuringly. “We’re not going to miss anyone. Everyone gets immunized. Panimmunity for all—everyone immunized against everything we know of and lots that we don’t.”

  “Everyone?” Frank asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Even Bobby Yancey?”

  Jene gasped quietly and felt her eyes widen. Lena looked away. Renold swiveled his head to stare thoughtfully at Frank. Jene could almost feel her husband’s intellect enter the conversation and begin to analyze. But he would stay on the edges.

  “Yes, even Bobby. Are you suggesting—?”

  “Yes!” Lena stood up suddenly. “Oh, Jene, you know us. We’re not bad folks. But suppose there’s a shortage of panimmunity vaccine. Are you saying that the Council wasn’t treated first just in case we ran out? And are you saying that Bobby should be considered as important as…well, us?”

  Jene stared at Lena in cold horror. Yes, she had known Frank and Lena for years—they had housed together for four years, ever since both families had grown to three persons each. Although she knew Frank and Lena did not share all her ideological views on life, she had never thought the two families were this different. The Council had hinted that perhaps the immunization schedule should prefer the genetically strong first, but their reasoning had been that those without unusual defects would be easier to immunize in any case and could be taken care of quickly, leaving more time to deal with the unusual cases. Jene had been skeptical as to the sincerity of the Council’s motives, but as there had been no sign of trouble with the vaccination program, she had agreed to treat the Council first. She had not anticipated the effects of the decision on other inhabitants of Ship—the Council had not kept their request secret. Jene scowled as a thought occurred to her.

  “Do you think our family is more important than yours, Lena?” Renold’s calm, cold, calculating voice drifted across the blanket.

  Lena’s eyes darted at Renold, then to Jene, then to the ground. Frank looked away. Jene knew what her husband was analyzing now—their body language and posture answered for them. Conversations over the years replayed themselves in Jene’s head—talks with Frank about Wendy, Lena’s eyes focusing intently on Kuarta whenever the two were together—and Jene knew what her husband was concluding. Frank and Lena considered themselves in a lower caste from the Halfners.

  “I think that it doesn’t matter what we think,” Frank said, his eyes locked on the remnants of his lunch before him. “We all know what’s going to happen when we make planetfall.”

  Jene glanced at Renold. He seemed to be deep in thought. She knew that he would not debate with Frank. She turned to Frank again, but found she had nothing to say.

  Frank continued. “We may not like what the Council is doing now. Hell, I know I don’t. But how much worse is it going to be in four months? Could we really expect total equality? Would that even be fair?”

  Jene snorted. “Total equality isn’t fair, Frank?”

  “You know what I mean,” he said. He brought his eyes up and started at her for a long moment.

  Jene did know what he meant. Frank was not stupid; he could sense what was coming and what it might mean for his daughter. He was perfectly willing to support the notion of a social hierarchy that placed the Council at the peak and others in descending order determined by their genetic health. Such a scheme would not put his family at the top, but it would put Wendy, with her minor genetic defects, closer to the
apex than the base. If some arbitrary line were to be drawn, separating society into those who would live and those who would not, Frank intended his family to be on the correct side.

  Jene fought the impulse to argue with him. She liked Frank and tolerated his wife. There was no need to prove to them that no line needed to be drawn at all. They would come to that conclusion on their own, as would the Council and the rest of Ship.

  “Well, we’ve all got busy days tomorrow. I think we’d better get back,” Jene finally said with false enthusiasm that none of the others cared to question. The families packed up, called their children, and headed back to their home the way they had come. Jene felt a twinge of regret that Kuarta would not be going on a worldwalk after all.

  The trip back was a silent one. When the two families parted to their separate floors, the Halfners above their friends, Jene wanted to speak but did not know the words. She was sure her husband did.

  Later that night, when the sunrod had dimmed and the lights from the settlements above twinkled vaguely like stars she had seen in Ship’s record vids, Jene was tucking Kuarta in to bed. Her daughter looked up at her thoughtfully and asked, “Mommy? Why does Uncle Frank not like me?”

  “Why do you say that, sweetie?”

  “He looks at me and frowns.”

  “Oh, dear, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t like you. He’s just worried.”

  “How come?”

  “Well, it’s his work. Sometimes his work worries him.”

  “Oh.” Kuarta digested this, and Jene kissed her.

  “Now sweet dreams, little one. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Okay. Mommy?”

  “Yes?”

  “Maybe we can give Uncle Frank a present tomorrow so he will not be worried.”

  Jene smiled to cover up her real feelings. “Sure, honey. Now go to sleep.”

  Chapter 2

  “Push one more time, Ute,” Jene said. “I see her head. One more push and she’ll be out.”

  Ute bore down again, her face contorted, and delivered her daughter.

  Jene was a professional. She had delivered dozens of babies and treated hundreds of patients. Furthermore, she had known from numerous prenatal exams that Ute’s daughter would have gross anatomical malformations and major genetic disorders. Jene had performed four in vitro surgeries on the developing fetus and had gotten a good look at what it would become. Even so, Jene could not totally suppress a slight shudder—a tremor that shook her shoulders and one which she hoped the loose-fitting scrubs hid—when she saw the end product of nine months of gestation.

  Jene expertly cut the umbilical and passed the baby to Tym, her assistant, who suctioned out the child’s mouth and malformed nasal passages. Jene forced herself to watch for a moment, then turned away, though not before she caught sight of the baby’s sole many-fingered hand reaching up towards Tym. She concentrated on the afterbirth instead. She harvested it carefully and passed it to another assistant from Ecological Engineering. The placenta would be put to good use in Ship’s botanical store.

  “How is she?” Ute asked weakly. Her partner, Howard, stood near her, holding her hand, looking balefully at Jene.

  Jene glanced at Tym. He gave a slight shake of his head.

  “We’ll put her in neonatal intensive care immediately,” Jene said. “She’s got an excellent chance.”

  “But how is she?” Howard asked. Jene knew what he meant. The question could have annoyed her. They had known for months that the baby was going to have severe malformations. Their previous son, Howard, Jr., had been a hemophiliac with practically no immune system. He had been in and out of Children’s Crèche all his young life.

  But it was not in Jene to be angry at them for something not their fault. The cosmos had conspired against these people, inflicting upon them, their parents, and their grandparents untold numbers of neutrons that sabotaged the reproductive process. And Ute and Harold had chosen to try to defy the cosmos. Their baby was the result. Ship had thick shielding, but one hundred years at one-tenth the speed of light meant cosmic radiation. Those genetic defects had increased despite careful outbreeding programs.

  Tym stopped briefly on his way out with the baby in the newborn support tank so Ute and Harold could see her. One look and they both paled. Ute buried her head in her partner’s chest and sobbed.

  Jene nodded to Tym, and he continued out. Jene followed him with her eyes and was startled to see one of the white-suited members of the Governance Council in the doorway. It was Ernst Sorensen—one of the Council’s lackeys.

  Tym had to push the tank past him, and the Councilman got a good glimpse of what was inside. Sorensen did not hide his disgust at the sight of the baby.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Sorensen,” Jene said testily, “but this is a private room. If you’ll wait outside, we’ll be—”

  “When you’re finished,” Sorensen said, and left. Jene had dealt with the man often enough to understand his meaning. She did not hurry to complete Ute’s exam.

  “As soon as she’s settled, I’ll come back to tell you how she’s doing. You can see her then,” Jene said, and gently stroked Ute’s sweat-soaked hair once, twice. She lingered with the family for a moment, then left to meet with Sorensen.

  He was leaning against a wall in the small waiting room, arms crossed in front of him. He straightened when he saw Jene.

  “What do you want?” Jene asked, suddenly tired. She was in no mood to deal with the Council—especially not their sleek attack dog.

  “The Council meets today. Special session. Wants to talk to you.”

  “Me? What for?”

  “Not the inoculation progress.”

  “Then what?”

  Sorensen smiled. “They’ll let you know. Council Chambers at seven,” he said, and started past her.

  “The Council can’t just order me to appear before them at their convenience.”

  “Not an order.”

  “Look, Sorensen, enough guessing games. What is the meeting about and why should I go?”

  “Make sure you take care of that…baby…first. Seven tonight in chambers.” And he strode away. Jene started to call after him again, but stopped herself. Sorensen was clearly not going to tell her any more, and she did not feel inclined to talk to him. She had not missed his pointed emphasis on the word “baby” and she seethed at it.

  * * *

  “How’d it go?” Doctor Werner asked when Jene joined him at one of the tables in the hospital cafeteria.

  “The procedure was fine.”

  Werner looked up from his meal. “Something the matter?”

  Jene did not answer for a moment, then glanced guiltily at him. “Sorry, Oskar. Yes, something’s wrong. Ernst Sorensen came to tell me the Council wants to see me tonight.”

  “Up in the core?”

  “Yes.”

  Werner shook his head. “Your muscles are going to turn to goo. The core will ‘sap your strength and vigor required to forge a new home for your children.’” His voice deepened as he quoted Ilene Shapiro’s famous speech of seventy-four years before when Ship had been debating building recreation areas in the null-g center of the great cylinder. Shapiro’s viewpoint had won out—the central core now contained only the computer mainframe, the power plant, the Council Chambers (with its attendant police department) and the Flight Deck. This latter facility comprised the vast majority of the core, where the seldom-discussed and never-seen Flight Crew carried out their duties alone.

  Werner speared a triangular piece of his yeast patty. “What’s it about?”

  “I can only guess.” Jene stared at her peas, pushing them around aimlessly with her fork.

  “I told you,” Werner said, his voice muffled momentarily as he finished chewing his yeast patty, “you shouldn’t be so free with your criticism of the Council.”

  Jene looked up at him. “Why not?”

  Werner stared gravely at her before drawing his knife slowly across his throat in the age-old gest
ure of sudden death. He noisily scraped his tongue along the sides of his mouth as he did so to complete the metaphor.

  Jene laughed.

  Werner stopped mid-sound. He turned the knife towards Jene and stabbed the air as he said, “You mark my words, young Doctor Halfner: you’re going to end up in the hydroponics vats someday.”

  “Aren’t we all, Oskar?”

  Werner blinked in surprise. “Yes, I suppose that’s true. Comforting to know that we’ll still be useful even after our deaths. Even if we weren’t useful in life.”

  Jene’s smile faded. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Oskar’s eyes widened at the sudden anger in her voice. “Huh? I meant that—”

  “You asked me about Ute’s daughter. You knew the baby was going to be deformed. Are you trying to tell me she should be recycled? Now? Maybe we should both go to neonatal care and shuttle her up to the vats immediately.”

  Werner grimaced. “Stop it, Doctor. You know that’s not what I meant. I think we should treat the Class D’s for as long as we’re able.”

  “Don’t call them that.”

  “What?”

  “Class D’s.” She had argued against the terminology when it was first put forward a few years ago to describe and categorize newborn genetic status. Class D was the highest level of deformity. “It’s a baby, not a label,” she added, then glared at him.

  Werner did not look at her as he put his silverware back on his tray with a loud rattle. “I have to go. I’ve got a procedure soon.” He stood up.