Tomorrow’s Heritage

by Juanita Coulson

  “Do I?” For a fraction of a second, Todd wasn’t in the station. He was hanging in space, his protective suit crumbling away, leaving him naked to high vacuum. Mari sensed his fear, and her arms closed about him. “Oh, Todd! I didn’t really mean that. I wish . . . I wish . . . we’re drifting apart, aren’t we? And I don’t want that to happen.”

  He held her tightly. “We won’t let it happen.” Above Mari’s head he saw McKelvey and read warnings in the big man’s face. Jealousy. Not sexual jealousy, but a fierce possessiveness that didn’t grant much space even to a brother. Todd sensed he was on thin ice. “We won’t let it,” he repeated insistently. He looked from Mari to Kevin and back again. “It’s not too late to mend fences, unless you’re planning to take off for Mars tomorrow.”

  Todd had the rare pleasure of seeing Kevin McKelvey at a loss. “How did you . . .? You saw her, when you were coming in? But . . .” For a moment, the cool soldier’s demeanor cracked. Kevin was ingenuously startled.

  “Give me credit for some brains. I read your propaganda. I keep up on all the family’s projects.” Todd grinned and tapped a finger to his forehead. “It goes with the telecom business. Anything you want to know, I’ve got the resources to dig it out. I don’t make a bad intermediary for family squabbles, either.” Mariette hugged him roughly, pretending to be annoyed. Todd savored the lightness as long as he dared. Then he sobered. “You can’t afford a Mars colony. I can show you the stats, if you’re ignoring them yourselves. You must know you’re not ready . . .”

  “Mankind’s never ready for the new and daring, the exploration. If we waited until all the problems were solved, enough funds piled up, we’d never go anywhere. We’d die out as a species. That’s why we’re going now, ready or not, while we’ve got the courage and the will.” Kevin spoke with calm confidence. Mari nodded, fire in her eyes, excited by the prospect. “We know what the difficulties are, yes,” Kevin went on. “But those won’t hold us back. We’re going to Mars, and beyond. There’s a Solar System, a universe . . . waiting for us. The planetsiders can crawl in their holes and stagnate. Our destiny’s tied to the stars.”

  He made Todd believe, suspended his doubts, for the moment. There was no logical argument against such idealism. Kevin was right, in some respects; it took just that kind of daring to get this job done. Yet throughout human history, such ventures triumphed at a high price— explorers’ lives and the aftereffects of opening those new frontiers. Inevitably, what the Colonists meant to do would affect all mankind.

  Todd shook his head. “The fact remains, you can’t really afford it, any more than Earth could afford the Trans-Pacific war. There’s going to be a heavy bill to pay, for Mars and for Earth. Earth isn’t going to recuperate for decades. Mari, you know Pat won’t get the payoff right away. He’ll hurt, for now. So will I. But it’s worth it, to stop the killing. Isn’t it worth it to you?” The situation wasn’t equal. He and Pat had diversified. Mari had plowed her fortune into Goddard and borrowed against her future inheritance from Jael as well. Unless the Colony made it, Mariette would be bankrupt.

  “Peace at a price,” Mariette said sadly. “And somehow I always pay the biggest portion. Why doesn’t it go both ways? Why isn’t someone willing to pay a price to bring Goddard peace and stop killing our people?”

  “They will be—”

  Kevin broke in, his deep voice hard. “Even if Fairchild breaks the news about the missile attacks, they won’t stop. You’re naive if you think they will, Todd. Oh, they’ll probably form an investigative committee and make a lot of horrified noises. But our enemies aren’t going to pay much attention to that. There’s too much at stake. They’re not going to give up until we stop them ourselves.”

  The ominous tone turned Todd’s gut to ice. “Wipe them out, whoever they are? Then what? You abandon Earth, turn your back on it and head out to Mars? Forget the rest of us. We’re dinosaurs, already extinct. Is that your feeling?”

  Kevin seemed a bit uncomfortable. “No, not exactly. But the future means an inevitable separation between the Spacers and the Earth-bound. There’s no other course. For now, well, we have friends down there. We’ll stick by them as long as we can. We don’t want anything to happen to them.”

  Todd feared this was a prelude to more paranoiac talk about SE Antarctic Enclave. “Tell Pat what you think and how you feel. Tell him to his face. Give him a chance to defend himself against your accusations. Anybody deserves that, Mari, even your own brother.”

  “That’s not fair,” she protested.

  “Yes, it is. You accused him. Maybe he’s accusing you, on other counts. Hell, I don’t know. We hardly ever get together as we used to.” It was so. Time passing too quickly, people he loved slipping away from one another and from him. And there was a time when they had mattered more to each other than anything else in the world.

  “Jael put you up to this, didn’t she? She wants you to drag me to Dad’s birthday anniversary.” There was less rancor in Mariette’s manner than Todd had feared.

  “I want you to come, too. So does Pat. He said to tell you he misses you. Yes, he did, don’t shake your head. You two always were too bullheaded. Jael figured I might be able to coax you into kissing and making up, despite everything.” Such teasing had worked when they were kids. Now he felt stubborn resistance. Maybe he had said too much, too little, or said it in the wrong way. He gazed at Mariette, seeing the reckless little girl. Impatient, she had skinned knees and elbows countless times rather than wait or use caution. He knew what it felt like, wanting to own, to possess something unique and precious.

  The stars.

  I want the stars, too, Mari. And I’ve already touched them, through the alien messenger. Wait. Just a little while longer. Don’t hurt yourself with your impatience this time.

  I want to tell you. But I can’t. It has to be equal—all of us together, sharing. I resented Pat’s holding back information from me. Now 1 realize I’m doing the same thing to you and Pat and Mother. But please . . . wait. It will be worth it. You’ll see . . .

  “Jael.” Mariette spoke so softly Todd strained to hear her. “She looked so old on that broadcast today. I hadn’t realized how much she was aging recently. Why doesn’t she retire?”

  “Mother? Retire? Unthinkable! you know that.” Todd hesitated, then said, “I don’t want to be morbid, but you know how much Dad’s birthday anniversary means to her.”

  “Yes, I know,” Mari replied wistfully.

  “It can be like old times, if we try. Jael wants it so much. It gives Dad back to us, even for a little while. All us chickens, back home under Mama’s wings. Okay, hell, she was maternal off and on, depending on whether her business cutthroating gave enough time for us. But we’re family. We came through plenty together because we were together. When you consider how many people have no family continuity at all . . .”

  “Like Dian,” Mari said suddenly.

  Mari, caring, fiercely protective of “her people” on the Colony. Empathizing with Dian Foix, orphaned during the Death Years, living through the Chaos while her heroine grandmother patched up the wounded and rescued the damned. And Pat, caring, holding a dying baby, begging doctors to save her, forgetting he was supposed to be a cold-blooded politician, interested only in votes.

  They could care so much; the capacity was tremendous.

  Mari moved over to Kevin’s chair and leaned over the back, clasping her slender hands across his chest. After a long minute’s consideration, she nodded. “All right. I’ll come to Saunderhome.” Her announcement took both men by surprise. Kevin squirmed around to look at her. Mariette laid a finger on his lips. “I’ve decided I will. That’s that. I’ll go, Todd, if you promise me something in return.” Kevin relaxed, as if he had guessed what she had in mind.

  “Conditions?”

  “Compromises,” Mari replied slyly.

  Defeated, cornered by his own words, Todd smiled. “What?”

  “Information. You bragged you could tap in on anyb
ody.” Todd didn’t know whether to keep fighting or submit gracefully. He was more than cornered; he was trapped. “Information we can’t get. Maybe only a Saunder can get it, a Saunder with inside connections and a global telecom network to dip into. It can’t be Pat. He couldn’t step off that campaign platform, even if he believed the way we did. And it certainly can’t be Carissa. Jael’s as wrapped up in the campaign as Pat is. Besides, we can’t count on her being impartial.”

  “Don’t be overconfident about me, either,” Todd said sourly. “Impartiality about what?”

  “Survival, of our allies and our private funding on Earth.” Kevin drew her arms about his neck, holding her hands in his.

  “You’re talking espionage.”

  “No.” Mari was emphatic. Why didn’t Todd trust her denial? “Saunder Enterprises is a quasi-nation, duly chartered by P.O.E. We’re not asking you to hunt out anything that shouldn’t be available to any member of the family, or to the president of ComLink Corporation.” Her manner became wheedling. “Todd, you must. You’re the only one who knows how to bypass all those accountants’ data locks and the rest of that comp technicalese. You say you took up where Dad left off. You understand his patents better than anyone, right?”

  “A few SE top techs might disagree with you about that.” Todd enjoyed the flattery but knew he was hemmed in all around the circle.

  Did he want to say no? It wasn’t paranoia to think they were being threatened here at Goddard. If the missiles were real, could any of the rest of it be real, too? Against his will, Todd felt a growing curiosity. He was being sucked into a whirlpool, not knowing where it would take him.

  “Just what am I supposed to find if I push through the accountants’ comp locks?”

  “Fund juggling. Account clipping. Rigged trials . . .”

  “Mari,” Todd said wearily, “I can’t do anything to reverse court decisions. Those are people who were convicted in dozens of nations. Whether or not you and I agree with the judgments, the trials are over and done with. Surely there are appeals courts, legal means . . .”

  “If the victims are still alive. Find out for us, Todd.” She paused, and Kevin gently stroked her hands, encouraging her. “If they’re frozen but okay, well, we hate it— it’s against their will—but there’s a future for them. And we’ll see that future gets here as fast as possible, and their governments will eventually revoke their sentences. I don’t care if you and I and Pat are all gray-headed and doddering by then. I’ll personally go to Antarctica and escort them home to their families, to their grandchildren.”

  Todd rubbed his chin, thinking over the technicalities involved. Kevin nudged him. “We’re mostly worried about the Antarctic confinees, it’s true. But our finances are in serious shape, too. We’ve tried to get the data, demand audits. Our people planetside keep getting snarled in red tape. They won’t be looking for you to come in on the flank. Just get us some proof so we can tell the world and make them turn loose those funds.”

  “Any other little miracles you’d like me to perform while I’m at it?”

  Mariette lit up. “You’ll do it?”

  Todd spread his hands in surrender. He didn’t mention his own growing suspicions on the same matters which concerned them. He had to save himself some bargaining power for later. “Do I have a choice? It’s blackmail, you know. You set this up, Mari. You were planning to do this all along, weren’t you? Okay. And in exchange, you’ll come to Saunderhome for Dad’s anniversary. Agreed?” Mariette left Kevin and rushed to him, wrapping him in one of her exuberant embraces. “Oof! Hey! It won’t be so bad. Dian’s going with me. She and Kevin and Carissa can play peacemakers if we start getting out of hand with family togetherness.”

  “Sweet little Carissa,” Mari said cattily. Todd had never quite understood her dislike of Pat’s wife. “Is she bothering to keep track of that blond bitch with the overdeveloped mammaries, or does she just let Pat run out to the end of his leash now and then?”

  This wasn’t the time or the place to let her explore that animosity. Todd grabbed what he had won before things could go wrong. “If my shuttle’s ready after the maintenance checks, we could catch a window on the next turnaround vector. I’m going to pick up Dian and Beth Isaacs and a few of my rotation personnel at Geosynch HQ for a ride to Orleans Port.”

  Dian and Beth and the others on Project Search’s team were going to be his guests at the Science Council conference, when he would read the paper regarding the alien messenger vehicle. They had worked very hard, and they deserved to be there with him when the spotlights turned his way.

  “I’ll set it up for the two of you with Traffic Control,” Kevin said. Mariette’s face fell, but she didn’t seem too surprised. Kevin heaved himself up out of his chair and stood in front of the picture of the mountain. “I won’t be accompanying you planetside. I’m needed here. Please make my apologies.”

  “Jael’s hoping you’ll join us,” Todd said. “She asked about you specifically.”

  “Sorry. I can’t. Maybe there’ll be another time, when things aren’t so tense. I admired your father tremendously. I’d be honored to be included in a family commemoration for him. But not at this time.” There was a note of finality Todd couldn’t miss. Unlike Mari, Kevin wasn’t nursing a possible “yes” in his mind.

  Kevin McKelvey wasn’t boasting. He was needed. It wasn’t merely his expertise in military matters and the fact that the liaison troops were loyal to him and able to share their training with Goddard’s civilians. Kevin had served on the Colony’s Planning Group for two years. He had been good at it, and the Group had turned to him often for leadership. In some form or another, he had been bound to rise to the top. He didn’t seem to yearn for political power the way Pat did. But he had a gift of command, as did Pat. People recognized it and sought him out.

  The Saunder women were drawn to men of action and vision, out-of-the-ordinary men. Ward Saunder, the fey, eccentric scientist. Jael Hartman’s old-money family hadn’t seen his potential, but Jael had turned her back on a world of tradition, elegance, and wealth in order to marry the penniless inventor. Now Mariette was turning her back on Earth and risking everything because of her belief in Kevin MeKelvey and the Colony he led. With McKelvey at Goddard, Mariette’s presence at Saunderhorne would be a mere token appearance. No matter how many quarrels Todd patched up, Mariette would head back to the Colony, and to Kevin, as soon as she could. A foregone conclusion.

  Kevin stood at parade rest. “You take care of her,” he said heavily.

  “Of course I will,” Todd returned, bristling. “What kind of order is that? She’s my sister.”

  “That’s the only reason she’s going planetside.”

  Suddenly, Todd realized that wasn’t a quaint male-superiority statement. Kevin was merely stating the, to him, obvious. Mariette wouldn’t have agreed to this trip to Earth for anyone but Todd. And Kevin wouldn’t have felt she was safe with anyone less personally interested in her welfare. In his own way, McKelvey was expressing a great deal of confidence in Todd.

  Then Kevin slapped his hands together loudly, making Todd start. “How about some food, since everything’s settled?”

  “Look, if you’re on short rations . . .”

  “We’ve got storehouses. We’re dispersing and decentralizing. We’re doing fine. No problem. We’ve got some nice cottonseed derivatives for you to try out. You’ll like them better than our amaranth moonshine, I’ll bet,” Kevin said with a wink, noting Todd’s barely touched glass. “And the usual fish and rice and yams—oh, and there’re some green vegetables and plump little chickens. Why don’t I just plug through your diet card and whip us up something?” Kevin went into the dispenser alcove. His bulk nearly filled the mini-room. Todd wondered where they had got a diet card file on him. He hadn’t given it to them.

  They have files on everything, probably. They’re fully computerized and comfortable with technology, racing to meet the future. Bright, well informed, and brave to the poi
nt of fanaticism.

  But they need me to probe SE’s files planetside. That’s a tie with Earth they can’t afford to cut yet.

  Kevin waited for the dispenser monitor to okay his selections. “I imagine you’ll want some sack time, too, after running through that shooting gallery.”

  “I’d like to check in on Gib, see if he’s doing okay . . .”

  “Sure! I’ll arrange it. He’ll appreciate the thought. What can we do to entertain you until a launch window clears? That’ll probably be thirty-six hours away, or so. Maybe a run out to the docks? Would you like to see how we’re coming on the Mars colonizer? We’ll trust you to keep that under your hat.”

  Irrepressible. Fund shortages and missile attacks be damned. They were going to try for Mars. They might even make it. And twenty years hence, the Goddard Colonists who stayed with the first station would undoubtedly be worrying about a growing independence movement among their children on another planet.

  A ride out to the docks would probably give Todd a close-up view of the damage to the torus as well. The threat of extinction, and the hope of an endless series of tomorrows on Mars.

  “Yes, I’d enjoy seeing the Mars ship. Very much,” Todd said, smiling.

  “We thought you would.” Kevin grinned back at him, letting down the barriers. No pomp, suitable to a space colony governor. This was the big bear of a man Todd had met on numerous other visits to Goddard, a slow-talking giant with a wry sense of humor, very likable, someone Todd was glad Mariette had fallen in love with. She had picked some bad ones in the past. This time she had shown some sense.

  Mari relayed the trays as Kevin passed them out, and they gathered around the table to eat. Todd was relieved to discover they had programmed some wine for him rather than more amaranth liquor. The wine, too, was locally produced. But it had vigor, waking his tongue. Nothing subtle about it, though the flavor was good. Kevin raised his glass and clinked it against Todd’s and Mariette’s. “To us. Good fortune attend us.” They drank to that, and Kevin licked drops of amaranth off his lips. “And just as soon as we clear away the petty details, we’ll get started. Mars it is!”