Terran Tomorrow

by Nancy Kress

  “Please, slower,” Jane said. “And what is ‘fanatic’?”

  Claire Patel said, “Hubon^tel,” and Marianne glanced at her in surprise.

  “This environmental group,” Zack continued, “called themselves Gaiists. They—”

  “Please,” Jane said, “I am sorry—but how can people be too much dedicated to environment? It is Mother Earth and without care, it will not support life.”

  My first insight into World culture, Zack thought. Too bad they hadn’t been in charge of Terra when carbon-emission caps and all the other pathetic stopgaps had failed.

  He said, “The Gaiists were ‘too much dedicated to the environment’ when they decided that humans were a deadly parasite on the planet, and only if we were gone could Earth recover. So they tried to kill off humanity, or at least most of it. And they succeeded.”

  No one spoke, and Zack had a hard time looking at their faces. “The Gaiists had started as a group of scientists dedicated to stopping global warming, and to reversing it if they could, no matter what the cost. But a group of fanatics seized control. Their numbers grew, people were desperate. Gaiists cells formed in a lot of countries, not just scientists anymore although a few gifted, deranged scientists remained. They were convinced that the only way to save humanity was to destroy it. They weaponized R. sporii.”

  “How?” Marianne said.

  “Are you familiar with the experiments—they go back over fifty years—to dramatically increase the virility of pox viruses by inserting human immune-boosting genes into the virus, so that the body gets overwhelmed by its own antibodies?”

  “Yes, of course. But R. sporii wasn’t—isn’t—a pox virus. It’s related to the paramyxoviruses.”

  Marianne, this indomitable old woman, seemed to Zack the only one capable of speech. Jane had stopped translating, overwhelmed either by the technical language or by horror. He said, “Yes. But the Gaiist scientists—they were brilliant, you have to give them that—did something similar to R. sporii. They then combined it with another paramyxovirus, avulavirus, whose natural host is sparrows. Avulavirus shares spore disease’s structure and entry protein, glycoprotein. Avulavirus is usually transmissible by direct contact, but now it’s airborne from bird droppings, with a dual reservoir—humans and several species of sparrows. The birds are asymptomatic carriers.”

  “And the humans?”

  This was the hard part. “The weaponized microbe was released ten years ago. It was deadly. The incubation period is incredibly short. Ninety-six percent of humans died within a few weeks.”

  Kayla Rhinehart screamed and fell to the floor. Jane translated that, her voice quavering. Claire Patel made a small sound and turned away.

  Marianne, her face pale and waxy, said, “So there were left alive—”

  “Something like two hundred and eighty million worldwide, fourteen million in the United States. Not so many now.” Starvation, disease, suicide, gangs, war.

  Marianne, very pale, said, “Go on. Why the war?”

  “After the Collapse, that’s what we call it”—because no one could bear the more accurate names—“the survivors were, and are, two groups. The four percent who survived R. sporii avivirus—we call it RSA—and the people who were inside energy domes and have not gone outside since without esuits. The weaponized virus is still out there. It didn’t die out because sparrows serve as the alternate host. That’s why you were told to put on esuits. Things in America would be much worse if it weren’t for domes and esuits, both technology we gained from the Worlders and finally figured out.” Zack nodded at Ka^graa.

  Claire said, “It wasn’t theirs.”

  “What?”

  Marianne said, “Never mind that now. Go on.”

  Zack said, “The survivors, some of them anyway, formed various paramilitary groups. There were intragroup warfare and South American–style coups, including among some ex-Army. You have to understand that entire military bases were empty and vulnerable. One group emerged from the fighting, New America. They seized control of critical Army bases, all equipped with various weapons. They want the rest of the bases and weapons, including ours at Monterey Base. They think we might have control of some really big stuff.”

  She didn’t, thank heavens, ask what big stuff. Zack had heard the rumors, and feared they were true.

  Marianne said, “The federal government?”

  “DC was nuked even before New America killed off its rivals. No one knows if it was a homegrown group, Russia, China, North Korea—anyone who had the bomb. Although when Congress still existed, it was New America they declared war on.”

  “US retaliation?”

  “Yes. And counterretaliation. Much of the East Coast, plus Seattle, LA, and Chicago are radiation holes. And most key military bases as well.”

  “How many of these energy-shielded domes are left?”

  “Not sure. There may be small ones with no ability to communicate. There is no Internet anymore—it was designed to survive attack, but nothing was designed for RSA.”

  “So who does my grandson report to?”

  Grandson. Well, at least that meant she had one family member left. No, two—the colonel’s brother would also be her grandson. Zack hadn’t been that lucky. He’d lost everyone, until he met Susan and they had Caitlin. He would die before he lost this second, precious family.

  He said, “The American military government, which is what we have now, holds a few domed bases across the country. Headquarters is at Fort Hood, Texas. Colonel Jenner can tell you more about that.”

  “These protective domes—can’t you make more?”

  “Energy dome manufacture was just starting when the Collapse came and the factory went up with LA. We can’t even alter their size or shape—essentially, they’re prefabs. But now that World scientists are here, with their more advanced—”

  Jane spoke, in English, with the look of a person focusing on what was most important. “The Earth, now … is the globe warming stopped? Is the environment saved?”

  For a moment, red rage flooded Zack. Then he got control of himself. She couldn’t know, this human girl cousin from the stars, that she had just named the Gaiist and New America justification for mass murder of nearly an entire species, and that species their own. Even now there were people who said, But what would have become of all of us on an unsustainable Earth if 96 percent hadn’t died? Wasn’t 96 percent better than everyone? Even now.

  “Yes,” he said to Jane. “Global warming has stopped increasing. Earth is slowly returning to healthy forests and savannahs and wetlands and jungles. To lovely pristine wilderness.”

  “Zack,” Lindy said warningly. Jane looked as if he’d slapped her—had his tone been that savage? Maybe. He was an RSA survivor. When he’d emerged from the fever high enough to cause delirium, his first wife and two sons lay dead on the bedroom floor, their lungs drowned in their own bodily fluids.

  Lindy took Jane’s hand. “You’ll be okay, Jane. All of you. As soon as Jas—Colonel Jenner says it’s safe, we’ll take you all to quarantine and adjust your gut microbes to Terran air. The process is much easier than it once was. We’ve learned a lot about the human body since you left. And inside the e-shields your people gave ours, you’ll be safe.”

  Marianne said, “I had two other children and another grandson…”

  Zack watched realization dawn on Lindy. He saved her from having to make explanations. “Marianne, Colin Jenner is an RSA survivor. He lives at the coast.”

  Tears clouded her eyes. Zack knew, already, she was a person who would hate that public display of weakness. He took a stab at redirection. “You said you’re infected with a virophage against the original R. sporii?”

  “Yes.” He watched her face steady. “But I doubt it will have any effect on this variation. If the virus has been merged with a bird virus, the two versions will be too different.”

  “Yes, but we can try. Have you cultured the virophage?”

  “Yes. But those cultu
res are aboard ship. There are anomalies in infected native animals—I want to talk to you about that. Later.”

  Yes, later. Zack turned to the physician, Claire Patel. “We’re doing work here that will interest you I think. And now that these scientists are here from World”—he nodded at the two men—“with their much more advanced knowledge, the work will probably go much better!”

  Silence. Then Claire said in a flat voice, “There is no ‘much more advanced knowledge.’ World science and technology are about fifty years behind ours. Ours when we left Terra, I mean.”

  “But … but … the energy shields! The spaceships!”

  “Not theirs. And they don’t know whose, any more than we do.”

  Zack considered this, while the world turned itself inside out, like a sock. World was not ahead of Terra, but behind. There would be no help from the stars.

  But there would be no advanced weapons, either, which was undoubtedly what Jason Jenner had been talking to the star-faring soldier about. Jenner would gain only the ship itself, if he had managed to save it.

  That, and five transplanted refugees who probably wished right now that they had never left home.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Sir,” Lieutenant Seth Allen said in Jason’s earplant, “we picked up the starship captain, Branch Carter. He’d left the ship in an esuit and was following the FiVee’s tracks here. He says he thinks he can move the ship. It hasn’t been hit yet, although one missile came close. But sir, it’s a whole lot bigger than we expected. Maybe twenty times the size of the one that launched twenty-eight years ago.”

  Jason said, “Okay, stand by.” He tongue-flicked off his mic and turned to Mason Kandiss, the soldier from the Return. Jason wanted a debrief about the whole situation, but there was no time for that now. Zack McKay and Lindy had the other nine refugees in a far corner of the signaling station, checking them out and answering questions. Outside the signaling station, the drones still attacked—how many more missiles were the fuckers prepared to expend? Jason would have to have the signaling station moved again, assuming the external equipment survived. If it didn’t, they’d lose contact with the comsat as well as the ship, and communication with Headquarters would be reduced to the uncertainties of long-distance radio.

  Private Kandiss stood at attention, a faded Ranger tab on his shoulder. Jason said, “At ease, Private. I need information. Does that ship have its own e-shield?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What can destroy it?”

  “On World, a shoulder-launched missile blew a big hole in it. It was repaired.”

  World had shoulder-launched missiles? Jason thought it was supposed to be peaceful, without war. But no time to go into that now.

  “To the best of your knowledge, can Captain Carter lift the ship again?”

  “He says so, sir.”

  “Can he park it in a stable orbit high enough to preclude a drone attack? Earth no longer has space-missile capacity.” Long gone. But at least Earth no longer had fighter jets, or they would have hit the spaceship already. The world’s remaining jets sat rusting on cracked tarmacs, all fuel long since expended and no people to make more.

  “I don’t know, sir. Carter isn’t really a pilot. He’s a lab assistant with a knack for hardware.”

  Christ. The only starship on Earth and it depended on a lab assistant with a knack for hardware. But it wasn’t like Jason had much choice; they had no additional dome to put the ship under, even if it would’ve fit, and a direct missile hit could take out the signaling shield at any moment. Jason flicked on his mic.

  “Lieutenant Allen, take Carter back to the ship and stay in it while he takes it up to low orbit. Take IT Specialist Martin with you. Up there, both of you learn everything he knows about the ship—maneuverability, communication capacity, fuel stores, weapons—particularly weapons. Await contact with us—we might wait to contact you, to avoid giving away the position of the next station. If you hear nothing in a week, it means the contact equipment has been destroyed. Land somewhere and hope. Go now.”

  “Yes, sir. Out.”

  Jason scanned the station. Sergeant Hillson stood with more of J Squad, awaiting orders. The star-farers huddled with Zack McKay and Lindy in a corner. As soon as he deemed it safe, Jason would send them all to the base.

  “Sir,” Kandiss said, “permission to speak.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “What happened to the Seventy-Fifth?”

  The Ranger Regiment of the United States Army. Of course Kandiss would want to know; he must have assumed he would return to it, albeit twenty-eight years later than he’d expected.

  “I don’t know. They were headquartered at Fort Benning, weren’t they?”

  If Kandiss felt surprise that Jason didn’t know this, it didn’t show. “Yes. And the Second Battalion at Joint Base Lewis–McChord.”

  “Benning is gone. Pretty much the entire East Coast was heavily nuked during the war. It’s not livable. Seattle and Portland were taken out, too, as was Creech Air Force Base. There are a few other Army bases left and staffed, or at least the parts of them that were under domes, notably Fort Hood and Fort Campbell. We are in communication with them. Headquarters is Fort Hood, ranking officer is General Ethan Lassiter, who is the military head of the United States under martial law.” Jason didn’t add that Lassiter was eighty-three and sickly. Let that information wait.

  Kandiss said, “Commander in chief?”

  “There is no president anymore. Chain of command starts with Lassiter.” Whom Jason would have to apprise about the Return as soon as possible.

  “Yes, sir,” Kandiss said. His face was stone.

  “You are hereby officially attached to J Squad of this company,” Jason said, knowing that what men like Kandiss needed was structure. “When we return to base, see Sergeant Tasselman about billeting. After that, report to me for full debriefing.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Dismissed.”

  Kandiss joined the other refugees. A Ranger in such superb physical condition would be an asset to the elite J Squad. And Kandiss was probably the most reliable source for learning in military terms what had happened on World, including to the rest of Kandiss’s unit. And hadn’t there been an ambassador along?

  His grandmother would know.

  Jason turned his back to the group of refugees. He had never before considered himself a coward. He had seen military service in Congo, he had come through the horror of the Collapse, he had fought New America. He had taken control of Monterey Base when there was nobody else left to do so. He was a colonel in the United States Army. He could steel himself to do what was necessary to the man in the underground prison in order to further protect the safety of those in his charge.

  But faced with his grandmother, the woman from the stars whom he had long thought dead, a thousand memories flooded his already stressed brain: Grandma making him and Colin peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Grandma teaching him to read. Grandma believing Colin could superhear what Colin said he could, when no one else believed. Grandma was the same as Marianne Jenner, world-famous geneticist—Jason’s childish pride when he had first realized that! Grandma—

  But he had lacked the courage to tell her outright that her daughter, his aunt Liz, had vanished during the Collapse. R. sporii, the scourge that his grandmother had once successfully defeated, had been weaponized by madmen to roar back and defeat the victors.

  Only—Jason did not feel defeated, and that was going to be the hardest thing of all to explain to her. Ninety-six percent of humanity had perished, but humanity was recovering. The remaining three large Army bases were winning the war against New America, even though the enemy had guerilla mobility on their side and a continent-wide returning wilderness to hide in. The scientists in Lab Dome, which Jason would do anything at all to protect, were going to figure out a way to neutralize RSA. He believed that. Villages and farms, at least those he’d had contact with on the West Coast, had not descended into preindu
strial barbarism. The United States had working technology, and enough brilliant minds to restart heavy industry as soon as the war was over and factories could be restarted or built. Children were being born. The oceans and atmosphere were recovering.

  Would his grandmother see all that? Could he make her see it?

  He knew what she would see at the base, what it would look like to her eyes. Two domes packed with too many people, divided into mazelike warrens by walls of wood harvested from the burgeoning forest or metal from before the Collapse. The result was a functional, unlovely, ramshackle hodgepodge surrounded by blue shimmering walls.

  Once Lindy had said, “It’s a mess. But what can you expect in a postapocalyptic world?”

  “This is not a postapocalyptic world!” Jason had flared, before he even knew he was going to say anything.

  She’d stared at him in astonishment. “Of course it is. The Collapse was an apocalypse, Jason. The Four Horsemen, every last rider.”

  “No. We are not scavenging for canned goods. We are not eating dogs. This is an Army base, orderly and growing. We are not some cheap horror film cliché. This is a thriving base of the United States Army.”

  “You always have to think you’re in control, don’t you? Have to prove to yourself again and again that you can handle anything because nothing is stronger than you are, not even reality.”

  “That is not true.”

  “It is, and don’t take that measured and superior tone with me. I’m sick of it.”

  The fight had escalated from there. One of their many, many fights. Until the last one.

  He could not expect Lindy to tell Grandma about Aunt Liz. Jason would have to do that himself. And this old woman who had come home from so far, who had endured so much over the years, who looked so worn—was she strong enough to bear this double blow?

  “Sir,” Li said, “the shelling has stopped and the outside equipment wasn’t hit.”

  “Good. We’ll wait for confirmation of liftoff from the Return, then convey the refugees to base. I’ll leave three of the squad here to help you move the station tonight.” Li would already have the next location picked out, and it would be the best fit possible, the borer bot already on site.