Chase nodded in understanding. “Peter is a good guy — we got along great for the little time he was here after I left the Kompound. But even if he was asshole number one and we hated each other, that kind of simmering resentment stuff doesn’t happen with guys like us. We would just fight.”
Jillian’s eyebrows rose halfway to her hairline.
“Relax, I’m joking,” Chase laughed. “But really, it’s kind of like how back in the old nuclear days, countries who had nukes wouldn’t even fight each other with regular bombs. When both know how much damage the other one could do, it keeps things in check.”
Grav, standing near enough to hear without eavesdropping, slapped Chase on the back. “Mutually assured destruction,” he chimed in with a dry chuckle. “The same reason I never came to blows with Peter back when he was still learning how to conduct himself properly!”
While Christian laughed, Grav caught sight of Holly leading the Kohlis towards the doorway and gently nudged Chase to let him know.
“It’s time,” Chase said.
More than understandably, Jillian began to tear up.
He hugged her tightly. “Before I go, I want to say thanks to both of you for everything you’ve done for me,” he said as they parted after well over ten seconds. “I know I wasn’t always all that easy to handle, but we got there in the end.”
She smiled slightly and wiped away her tears.
“And building me into someone who can lead this project is what it’s all been about,” he went on. “This is what it was all building towards, we just didn’t know it.”
“Goodbye, son,” Christian interjected, biting his lip to avoid making the moment any more difficult for Chase than it had to be. Jillian was past that point.
“This is why you raised me,” Chase said, stepping away from them for the last time and talking back over his shoulder as Grav ushered him towards the Ferrier. “This is why I was born.”
eighteen
Viola Ospanov, having keenly followed the progress of her friends over the better part of two weeks as they ventured from Terradox to Arkadia, could scarcely believe that her time to leave Earth for good had finally come.
A Karrier would soon take Viola and just six others to a rendezvous with Chase Jackson and everyone else aboard the huge Ferrier that had departed Terradox. Her family of three would be joined by the Hawthornes and her father Robert, with the overwhelming majority of future Arkadians set to begin their own short trips in a month’s time.
Viola was nothing but glad to be leaving behind the fear that had swirled in her mind over recent years despite a lack of any tangible threats of late, and what made her happiest of all was that young Katie didn’t resent the big move. On the contrary, she and her best friend Patch Hawthorne could hardly wait to reach the new world they had heard so much about — and especially to meet the famous Chase Jackson, who was idolised on Earth like a cross between the champion athletes and Hollywood superstars of days gone by.
More than anything else, however, the children were champing at the bit to step inside a real-life spaceship.
Awake before anyone else, and several hours before their long drive to the Karrier’s launch port a few hundred miles west of New London, Viola glanced at the muted TV wall and saw a live report about her imminent departure. People were sad to see her and the others go, but fortunately — with a tiny handful of exceptions — they were not angry.
By and large this was because Earth was undoubtedly a better place than it had been when Viola last left as an unfocused 17-year-old, escaping with her family for the station but ending up on Terradox. Rather than harbour resentment that she was leaving, Earth’s citizens were overwhelmingly thankful for all Viola had done and all she had risked over the years.
Similarly, because of the vast quality of life improvements that had resulted from knowledge gained from the discovery and colonisation of Terradox, Viola herself felt very little guilt at leaving billions of people behind. Indeed, it didn’t really feel like anyone was being left behind since all scientific progress made on Arkadia would be freely fed back to Earth.
To that end, the Arkadia project was less of a breakaway civilisation than a one-way expedition into the unknown — and one which would benefit everyone, regardless of whether they were staying behind or going along for the ride.
Fears of mass-scale brain drain weren’t completely unfounded given that a disproportionate number of highly-skilled individuals had applied for places on Arkadia, but work within sensitive industries and research areas had continued unabated during the quarantine period which removed all successful applicants from their former social and economic positions. That these months of quarantine did not weaken productivity in any meaningful sense strengthened the view that life would go on, despite the sudden exodus of so many intelligent and productive people.
“Mum, it’s today!” an ecstatic voice called from the hallway. Katie continued into Viola’s bedroom, waking Peter up as she let her bottled-up excitement out.
Peter looked at the clock on the wall. “Barely,” he groaned, a smile creeping slowly through the words.
Viola laughed, at both of them. She thought back to all the time-passing conversations she’d had since childhood on the theme of what she would do if she found out the present day would be her last day on Earth. The implication had always been that the last day on Earth would be the last day anywhere, which of course wasn’t true in this instance.
In this instance, Viola’s last day on Earth was the start of something new: a brave new life on Arkadia. And just as she would wish to spend her real last day with Peter and Katie, so she was eternally grateful that they had all made it through a sometimes-trying seven-year stay on Earth and were ready to cross the bridge together into the new life that awaited them.
“Go and double-check you’ve packed everything, then get yourself ready, okay?” Viola said to Katie. “I’ll make some breakfast and then we’ll meet up with Grandad and Patch’s family for the drive.”
Katie’s smile beamed brighter than ever before she gladly set off to follow these instructions.
Viola turned to Peter. “Are you planning on getting up at some point or should I call Pavel and tell him there’s a space on the early flight out?”
Peter chuckled and sat up slowly. “This is my last day on Earth, V,” he said, revealing that he’d been having similar thoughts to her own. “Is a lie-in really too much to ask?”
“When our flight time has been carefully calculated so that we dock with the Ferrier at the right time…” she said, reaching over to whisk the covers from the bed, “I’m afraid that yeah, it is too much to ask.”
“It’s not cold enough for that old trick to work…” Peter said, pretending to settle back down.
“My next trick is a bowl of cold water,” Viola retorted as she headed downstairs to make Katie’s breakfast.
Peter looked around the bedroom, laughing as he got up. Although their family home wasn’t ostentatiously decorated by any means, it was spacious and plush to a sufficient degree that Peter imagined his younger self would have irrationally hated anyone who lived in a place like it. He had fallen into the position he was about to assume as Head of Security on a man-made world of wonder on the back of a horrifically tough childhood, and where he came from was never far from his mind.
Today was all about where he was going, however, and he frequently felt like he should pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming and that he really had come this far. That the war-torn and violent path of Peter’s youth had ultimately led him to Viola and the perfect daughter they shared was the icing on an already unbelievable cake.
And despite Peter’s faux reluctance to get up, Arkadia and all the unbridled opportunities it represented was the cherry on top that he couldn’t wait to taste.
nineteen
By and large, the Ferrier’s long trip from Terradox to the rendezvous point near Arkadia was welcomely uneventful. Watching the new world grow larger
by the hour had been the main event of the last few days, until the excitement ramped up when a VIP-packed Karrier left Earth on a course that would see it dock with the Ferrier just a few days later.
The only mere hint of strife came from Chase’s continued anger at Romesh Kohli over the latter’s actions in engaging in unapproved research which ultimately led to the precautionary elimination of his Nancy project. Chase was infuriated by what he perceived as unadulterated selfishness on Romesh’s part, particularly in regards to the inherent risk to which he had exposed the rest of the colony by undertaking such reckless atmospheric interventions. Nisha, who would have been caught in the middle of any overt arguments between the two, successfully talked Chase into keeping his feelings to himself in this case, insisting that what was done was done and that her father had gotten the message loud and clear that any kind of repeat performance would lead to serious consequences.
Chase actively stayed away from Romesh for the vast majority of the journey — something picked up on by Romesh but no one else — and the general group’s excitement reached fever pitch when the approaching Karrier finally came into view.
With some long overdue reunions now imminent, spirits were far too high for Chase to want to inject any conflict. He spent a good deal of time playing strategy games with Romesh’s fiercely intelligent son Vijay, who spoke for everyone as the moment drew tantalisingly near when he once again reiterated that he truly couldn’t wait to see Viola and Peter.
For Viola, the only moment her mind could remotely link to the docking procedure which was underway between her Karrier and the far larger Ferrier was her arrival at the Venus station after the initial discovery of Terradox.
On that occasion the main entrance area had been fit to bursting with elated station-dwellers, but this was different. While that had been a huge moment for everyone, she had never previously met even one of the people waiting on the station. The Ferrier she was about to enter, on the other hand, contained some of her dearest old friends and her only brother. Her heart was racing in the best way.
Viola stood near the locked doorway with her family at her side, leading the way. Like the Hawthornes were more than willing to let the Ospanovs go first, she similarly assumed that Bo would be the first person any of them would see on the other side.
At the last moment, however, she ushered her father Robert to the very front, encouraging him to go first and ultimately leaving him with little choice in the matter.
As the door opened to instantaneously reunite the two groups, Bo and Robert stood directly opposite each other for a few pleasant seconds before meeting halfway and performing a surprisingly perfunctory father-son greeting. They were clearly delighted to see each other and the lack of physical warmth didn’t surprise Viola, who knew them both well enough to have known that was exactly what would happen.
“Are you okay?” Robert asked.
Bo nodded, fairly convincingly. “She just couldn’t leave her family,” he said, immediately addressing the question Robert hadn’t wanted to raise outright. At that point Robert belatedly put a hand on Bo’s shoulder, but the contact lasted only until Viola burst forward to pull Bo into a hug so tight that he quickly had to ask her to stop.
She hadn’t seen Bo for seven years as opposed to the three that Robert had been away from him, but beyond that she was also far more emotionally expressive in all situations. She didn’t say anything about there being plenty more fish in the sea, knowing that was the worst thing she could have possibly said. Chase and Nisha were together and the rest of the Kohlis had arrived as a tight-knit family of three, leaving Bo alone.
Instead of referencing who Bo’s life would now be without, Viola gestured back towards the rest of the recent Karrier arrivals. “I’ve got someone here who can’t wait to meet her Uncle Bo,” she said.
His face positively lit up when Katie stepped forward, although he did have to glance very briefly back to Viola to make absolutely sure that his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him and that Katie really did look that much like her in real life.
While Bo and Katie got acquainted in person for the first time, others began to file past in both directions. Robert and Romesh smiled broadly when they caught sight of each other and quickly dove into a conversation.
“I was sorry to hear about Nancy,” Robert began.
Someone who overheard this gave an overtly communicative cough, suggesting quite clearly to Robert that this was a no-go topic and still a point of contention. He got the message loud and clear and took it upon himself to marshal the crowd away from the bottleneck of the doorway and towards a more open area of the Ferrier.
There, Vijay took advantage of the space to run straight towards Viola and hug her like he was still the six-year-old she’d taken under her wing in Terradox’s Childhood Development division. Seeing how much he’d grown was by far the biggest shock she’d received so far, with a seven-year gap naturally making a lot more difference between the ages of 6 and 13 than it did for the already grown-up others she hadn’t seen in the same amount of time. She also hadn’t communicated with Vijay via frequent video chats like she had with Bo, which further enhanced the surprise factor.
“You got big,” Peter said to the boy.
“I’m catching up,” he replied, his voice not yet truly deep but also having changed dramatically.
“Just keep eating your vegetable-shaped algae and you’ll maybe get there one day,” Peter laughed, before pulling away to catch up with some of the others.
Viola put her hand over Vijay’s head and ran it straight to the top of her nose. “Seriously, though… how long ago did I actually leave?” she asked with a laugh. It then hit her that her own daughter was now the same age Vijay had been back then, which made her realise in an altogether different kind of way just how long it really had been.
Nisha came into Viola’s view with a few steps towards her brother, leading to another warm reunion. The two hadn’t known each other very well or for very long before Viola’s forced departure from Terradox, but in the mean time they had helped to keep each other sane from a hundred million miles away.
Nisha next greeted Kayla Hawthorne, a fellow physicist she’d worked alongside on Terradox but had never been particularly close to outside of work. For Kayla, though, seeing such a familiar old colleague’s face after so long without any, it felt like reuniting with her best friend.
Chase Jackson had been holding a respectful distance, allowing the three families and old friends to reunite. While Viola was with the Kohlis and Kayla, the first person his eyes rested on for more than a few seconds was Peter.
They shared a long glance across the room, two intimidating physical specimens, not sizing each other up so much as showing mutual respect. Arkadia was big enough for the both of them and they were glad to share it with each other, but there was an inescapable reality that men of their statures and reputations were unlikely to greet each other in the same outwardly carefree way that most of the others did.
“Good to see you again, man,” Chase said, breaking their two-way silence and ignoring the part of his animal brain that pointlessly but persistently told him that speaking first was a sign of subservient weakness.
Peter smiled warmly. “Sorry, cowboy, but we weren’t able to bring any of those bison you wanted.”
Chase roared with laughter as he walked forward to shake Peter’s hand. “That’s space cowboy to you, sheriff,” he grinned.
“So I hear he let you win too, huh?” Peter asked when their handshake ended at the regular, non-confrontational point that all did when they didn’t involve Grav.
“He’s some guy,” Chase said.
“I sure am,” a quiet but unmistakeable voice interjected from the shadows of a corridor leading further into the Ferrier’s interior.
Chase gave a knowing grin as Peter, utterly stunned, stepped to the side and walked over to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating.
“I am not coming to Arkadia,” Grav said, keen to
shut down this train of thought — if it was indeed present, which he naturally wasn’t sure of.
“Of course,” Peter said, “but you’re here now.”
The two had a jovial catch-up out of everyone else’s sight until Grav beckoned Chase over for a more serious discussion. “I know I do not have to say this, but I am going to say it anyway to stress the point,” he said. “We are all on the same team. You are on the same team. People look up to you two in particular, and I want you to understand the weight of responsibility that comes with that.”
As the two younger men listened like attentive pupils, Grav told Chase in no uncertain terms that he had better not undermine Peter or his team at any point. Not picking favourites, he then ordered Peter in equally firm terms to remain humble at all times and to never discount Chase’s input.
“I have spent the last four years with this man,” he said, putting an arm around Chase’s shoulder, “and I see a lot of you in him, Peter.”
This made for an awkward moment for both of them — but less so for Grav, apparently — with Peter and Chase both unsure what they should say, if anything.
Peter eventually broke the tension with a second reference to the rigged handshake contest Grav had engaged in with Chase, which sounded an awful lot like the one he’d engaged in with Peter many years earlier. In both cases the younger man hadn’t known ahead of time that Grav was going to throw it to make them look good, but both appreciated that he would do such a thing.
Grav shrugged. “It is good for morale when people think the young pretenders can hold a candle to their sensei.”
It was unusual to hear Grav talk even remotely prosaically, let alone with words like sensei sprinkled in, causing both of them to laugh again.
“But now that no one is looking, if the two of you want to know where you really stand…?” he continued, extending both arms at once.
Terradox Quadrilogy Page 99
