Vale of Stars

by Sean O'Brien

  “I do not believe he would have ever released this data. I will allow you to hear the transmission yourself.” Costellan floated to one of the technicians and spoke briefly to him.

  Jene frowned. What did he mean, transmission? As she wondered at his choice of words, the answer came to her through a static-laced sound that echoed through the control room.

  “…to Colony Ship Odyssey, this is the New Earth colony on Epsilon Eridani 3. We have picked up your probe on radar. We have been expecting you. You’ll be glad to know that we have reserved a sizeable portion of our colony for your use upon your arrival, and we stand ready to assist you in any way we can. We will send you transmission details so you can respond with what we’re sure will be a stream of questions. But for now, welcome to New Earth, brothers and sisters!”

  Jene stared at Costellan as the voice of the com operator sounded in the room. Costellan glanced at his technician and the voice ceased.

  “How?” Jene croaked.

  “We’ve been in contact with them for a while now. It seems that Earth developed a method of space travel that beat our cruising speed of point one c—that’s one tenth the speed of light—by a factor of five. Twenty-one years after our departure, the Colony Ship Argo was launched. It achieved a velocity nearly half the speed of light and arrived at Epsilon Eridani in just over twenty years. Because of the difference in launch dates and relative velocities, there was no practical way for the Argo to contact us even if they knew our position, and as you know, our contact with Earth was terminated fourteen years into the mission due to power demands. We calculate that the Argo overtook us about eighty-one years ago. They have established a thriving colony that has been in existence on EE3, which they call New Earth, for sixty years and which has a population of about fifty-five thousand.”

  Jene felt the room drop away from under her. She was suddenly quite terrified of the constant falling sensation on the Flight Deck and vomited unceremoniously, trying vainly to cover her mouth and spare the surfaces of the room.

  The four technicians swam to mop up the offending matter as Costellan quickly hugged her to him. “It’s all right, Doctor. The Commissar-General of New Earth is a very likeable woman. I think you’ll like it there.”

  Costellan went on in soothing tones about the nature of New Earth—the planet had been partially terraformed, though the colony was still living in pressure domes. Ample living space had been prepared for the newcomers aboard Ship and the inhabitants of New Earth stood ready to accept their brothers and sisters with open arms.

  But Jene knew why she was crying. It was not because suddenly, in a single, ironic stroke of cruelty on the part of the universe, the pioneers of Ship had been reduced to refugees and immigrants, nor was it because of relief that none of the surviving Class D children would have to suffer because of inadequate medical care during planetfall—it was because she had set in motion a war that had killed her husband and her daughter’s father; a war that had killed dozens of people, including Bobby Yancey: a war that had not been necessary. Now the grief of Renold’s death came flooding into her, but it was not alone.

  Book Two

  Colony

  Chapter 6

  With detached interest, Kuarta watched her daughter play with the small museum’s native stone and mineral collection. It was a boon to have such a collection inside the Dome where children could handle some of the harmless specimens of Epsilon Eridani’s geology. Yallia had only recently turned five years old by Ship reckoning, but had yet to reach her fourth New Earth year. She was not yet old enough to venture outside, even under strict supervision. There were just too many risks.

  “Ma, when is Gramma coming?” Yallia asked, her hands turning over a bleached-green Epsilon stone.

  “She had some work to do. I’m sure she’ll be here soon.”

  Kuarta smiled despite herself as she thought of the feisty old woman. Her mother was still as formidable a force as ever—in the familial as well as political arenas. It had been she who had spearheaded the Genetic Integration laws seven Ship years ago—no, eight, Kuarta remembered. It had taken Kuarta and her partner Dolen four years to conceive Yallia. Kuarta remembered her mother’s apprehension at Dolen’s presence in her life. He was one of the Argonaut-descendants, genetically superior to even the purest of the Ship immigrants. Tall, handsome, possessed of a keen intelligence and a remarkably efficient and healthy body, as well as unusual charm and grace, Dolen had nevertheless unnerved Jene. She liked the young professor, certainly; it was the inevitable social friction that worried her. Argies did not marry Shippies.

  “I think you should wait, that’s all I’m saying,” Kuarta remembered her mother telling her those four years ago. “The ink isn’t even dry on the legislation, and you want to go and be a test case. Isn’t it enough that your mother wrote the damn laws?”

  “It’s been three years, Ma,” Kuarta had said with a grin. “You know very well that by now there have been half a dozen unions between argies and us, some of them with children. No one will take notice of me.”

  “The hell they won’t. Look, Kuarta, for better or for worse, you get the runoff from the attention people splash on me. A Commissar’s offspring is always under suspicion, but you’re the daughter of one of only two Ship Commissars.”

  Kuarta had become angry at that comment. “Ship Commissar? There’s no such thing, Ma. You’re a Commissar just like the other fourteen. You’ve got the same responsibility and authority as the rest of them.”

  Jene had smiled indulgently at her daughter’s charming naiveté. “I’d like to believe that, dear, but it’s just not so. Perralt and I have no illusions as to our true stature in the Assembly. Twenty Ship years is a long time but not long enough to erase deeply held prejudices. She and I are only two voices, from different Domes at that. Two voices against thirteen don’t get a lot done.”

  “You passed the G.I. laws,” Kuarta countered. “You convinced enough argie Commissars to vote for it. That took some doing.” Despite herself, Kuarta referred to the other Commissars by their heritage.

  Jene nodded slightly at that. “Yes, it did. More than I think you realize.” She sighed. “It some ways, it was easier when we first landed. I remember the immunizations—we had been so wrong, Kuarta.” The bitter edge in her voice Kuarta had become so accustomed to faded, as it always did when she remembered the past, especially the past before Renold’s death. “We thought we had prepared ourselves on Ship with our so-called panimmunity. But the argies had an immunization program ready for us. We were in quarantine less than a week, and it was not at all unpleasant. After that, for years, we were welcome guests, given the best linens, so to speak. I remember when we first offered to put our colony equipment—and Ship itself—at the disposal of the government here.” Jene chuckled. “We had colonization equipment that was at least sixty years out of date! I remember the laughter at that,” she said, her eyes looking into the past. “Still, they made room for us, even though we had nothing to offer. Built an entire Dome just for us. Yes, we were welcome here, and we thanked the argies every time we saw one of them.”

  “Then things changed,” Kuarta said. “I remember, too. I was ten…or six, I mean, when it really started.”

  “Oh, well, it didn’t really start like turning on a switch, dear. It had been building up. How could it not? Shippies began to think of the colony as their home, and argies noticed we weren’t thanking them as much for the very air around us. Resentment on both sides. It was bound to happen, dear.”

  “You say that like there was no other way,” Kuarta had said. “But then you fought and fought until you made them appoint you and Perralt Commissars. Why did you do that, if you thought there was nothing that could be done?”

  Jene smiled wolfishly. “All right,” she growled, “you caught me. I was younger then, Kuarta, and I thought I could make a difference.”

  “Oh, Mother, you’re still young. And you can still make a difference. You just keep fighting for us i
n the Assembly. I’ll make a difference in other ways. Like with Dolen.”

  Jene snorted. “Got me back to the subject at hand, I see.”

  Kuarta remembered her mother’s sigh—a sigh that had indicated that not only was her mother willing to let her have her way in this, but that said she had never seriously objected to her daughter’s union with the young argie.

  “Go ahead and unify with your partner,” she had said. “You two shouldn’t have to suffer because some Earth scientist built a faster starship engine a hundred years ago.”

  Kuarta remembered her mother’s almost hidden pride on the day of their union (“marriage,” Jene had insisted upon calling it) and her grudging acceptance of Kuarta’s choice of partners.

  That night, before going to bed together for the first time, Kuarta had taken Dolen outside the Dome, both clad in their Epsilon suits to ward off the toxic chlorine atmosphere, to her father’s grave. Dolen listened for an hour as Kuarta had told him what she knew of Renold Halfner, both from dim memories and from her mother’s stories.

  Kuarta was jerked back into the present by the crying of her daughter at the E-stone display. She was sitting on the ground bawling, Epsilon stones scattered around her, while three physically impressive young boys—obviously Argonaut-descended—hoved thuggishly nearby.

  “What happened?” Kuarta said, scooping her daughter up in her arms and examining her for bumps or cuts.

  “The boy hit me,” Yallia said amid sobs, pointing at one of the three.

  Kuarta glared at the trio accusingly. “I’m sure he didn’t mean to,” she said, cradling her child in her arms.

  “Stupid shippie can’t even stand up on her own,” the boy mumbled, quietly but loudly enough for Kuarta to hear. He and his friends looked to be about ten years old, which meant they were six in New Earth years.

  “Come on, Yalli, let’s go see some of the other things here,” Kuarta said, anxious to leave the area. She could see heads beginning to turn her way—Argonaut-descended stares could not be far behind.

  “Why don’t you go outside and play?” the same boy said, this time making no effort to lower his voice. The other two laughed.

  That comment had caused a bit of a stir in the immediate area. Several people, their stature and characteristic jet-black hair identifying them immediately as also Argonaut-descended, stopped to watch Kuarta’s reaction to the boy’s comment.

  She knew what he had meant—it was commonplace to refer to the outside whenever one wished to symbolically consign something to oblivion. Although the terraforming process had been going for almost eighty years, the chlorine-tainted atmosphere was still almost instantly fatal to unprotected humans. A glance at the expectant faces around her told Kuarta that the boy’s sentiments were echoed, albeit silently, by the adults around her.

  One face in the crowd caught her eye, a young adult argie woman’s. The expression on her face was a mixture of emotions—sympathy for Yallia and Kuarta, hatred for the behavior of her fellow argies, and fear for herself. She looked up at Kuarta and made a tiny gesture with her shoulders, as if to say ‘I am not one of these people. I do not share their attitudes toward you and your child. But I cannot speak out.’

  Kuarta nodded slightly at the sympathizer and turned back to Yallia.

  “Let’s go see the science experiments,” she said to her daughter, as brightly as she could. She put Yallia down and, gripping her hand tightly, started to walk out of the loose circle that had begun to form around her.

  She made every effort to avoid eye contact with the boys, but as she passed, she could not resist a quick glance in their direction. The spokesman was staring at her, feet rooted firmly in place as if to claim the land itself, while his compatriots whispered to each other. Kuarta caught the word “Halfner” from their conversation.

  “Hey,” The lead boy said suddenly. Kuarta hesitated for a fraction of a second, then continued to move on.

  “You’re Kuarta Halfner,” the boy said, a note of hostile accusation in his voice. “Your mother brought all you here.”

  Kuarta needed to respond to that. Something about the way the boy spoke her name indicated that he was pointedly ignoring her new surname: Verdafner, a fusion of Dolen’s original Verdu and her Halfner, as was the custom. “We came here—” she started, then thought better of it. The boy did not want an explanation, nor did the dozen or so people who had by now gathered around her. She had to change tactics. “Where are your parents, young man?”

  “Right here,” came the instant answer from behind her, alarmingly close. A burly man with thick black eyebrows looked down on her. “Why don’t you get out of here, shippie, and stop making trouble?”

  While the context of his words indicated the museum itself, Kuarta knew the man’s thinly-veiled meaning was for her and her kind to leave the planet altogether. The slight nods and murmurs of agreement from the rest of the crowd confirmed the sentiment.

  “All right, let’s just move on, okay?” said yet another voice from beyond the throng. A blue-shirted museum worker wormed her way into the thick of the crowd and, through gestures and encouraging words, dispersed the twenty people around Kuarta. Soon, the area was all but deserted.

  “Everything okay here?” she asked Kuarta with a smile. The woman was perhaps sixty-five, her raven hair only slightly less vibrant than that of those around her, her face only beginning to show wrinkles. The longevity of the Argonaut-descended was yet another difference that marked them as separate from, and superior to, the immigrants from Ship.

  “It is now. Thank you so much,” Kuarta said, genuine relief flowing from her. Yallia looked up at the worker.

  “Good. Hello there, little one,” the woman said to Yallia. “Do you like our museum here?”

  “Yes. It’s fun.”

  “Oh, good.” She smiled down at the girl and said to Kuarta, “I know you people love the museum. I’m just sorry that had to happen to you.”

  Kuarta’s smile faded slightly. You people. “That’s all right,” Kuarta said automatically. “We still have you to thank.” Kuarta let go of Yallia, who wandered the few short feet back to the mineral display.

  “Oh, don’t mention it. Our colony is your colony. We have to make you folks feel at home here and try to help you integrate into our society. How old is she?”

  Kuarta hesitated only a moment to convert Ship age into New Earth age. “She’s—three and a half.”

  “Oh, she’s so darling. It’s so good to see little ones enjoying the museum.” She watched Yallia for a moment, then added conversationally, “It’s funny, but she looks almost argie.”

  The museum worker stared at Yallia, and Kuarta imagined the woman was wondering just how the resemblance to the superior elite had been achieved.

  “Her father is Argonaut-descended,” Kuarta said softly.

  “Oh,” the woman said, her voice betraying the strain of forced nonchalance. Immediately, the woman shifted her weight to the foot away from Kuarta and seemed to withdraw into herself. She gave Kuarta the courtesy of watching Yallia for a few more seconds before saying, with too much enthusiasm, “Well, I’d better be going back to work. The museum won’t run itself. Nice to have met you.”

  Kuarta watched her retreat to another part of the museum before she gathered her daughter and left the place altogether.

  * * *

  Botanical Section Nine (more commonly referred to as “the forest of Arden” both because it was the section that housed most of the deciduous trees in New Chicago Dome and because it was the favored retreat of young lovers) was empty the next morning when Kuarta and Dolen took one of the strolls they arranged whenever their work schedules allowed. They lived as close to Arden as was possible, given the topography of New Chicago, the official name for Dome Six. Fully half of the nine-thousand occupants lived in the sixteen towering buildings in the center of New Chicago where the Dome ceiling was ninety meters high, while the rest lived in shorter buildings that formed a series of concentric
rings around the metropolitan area. Next came forests, such as Botanical Section Nine, and beyond them, towards the edges of the Dome, were the various industries that kept New Chicago a working, functioning part of the massive Dome Complex, of which it was one of six. New Chicago was home to many shippie families: by now, twenty years after planetfall, shippies had spread beyond their New Frankfurt Dome and were beginning to live in others. The distinction between shippie and argie was made all the more overtly to compensate, it seemed.

  But now, Dolen and Kuarta were merely two people out for a walk in the trees.

  “There was more trouble yesterday with Yallia,” Kuarta said softly after the pair had been walking in silence for a time.

  “What kind of trouble?” Dolen’s oval, somber face turned to meet hers. He listened attentively as Kuarta relayed the story of the encounter in the museum, stopping her for brief moments to ask clarifying questions. She could almost feel his anger rising, even while he displayed no sign of distress. He was like that—able to mask virtually any emotion or feeling he wished from almost anyone; Kuarta, however, had learned to read his moods despite his almost perfect inscrutability.

  When she had finished, Dolen said, “I suppose we will have to talk to Yallia. No sense in bringing it up with Jene.”

  “You’re saying we shouldn’t tell my mother?”

  Dolen sighed. “If we tell her, she’ll have to try to balance her own feelings against her position as Commissar. I know Jene—she’s a fine politician, but no one should be placed in such a delicate situation. She’d get into trouble, politically as well as morally.”

  Kuarta knew he was right. In the near-perfect socialism the colony had organized, the mere hint of favoritism in the political circles could bring down the most capable of legislators. If Jene acted to protect her family, she would soon find herself facing the Board of Inquiry.