Ad Astra

by Jack Campbell

  Gayle shrugged. "They'll be fine. There's enough landers to take down almost the entire population, and each of them has an assortment of redundant colonizing gear on board. They're one-way transport, remember? Only the shuttles were designed for multiple ground-to-space flights."

  "Are we also taking one of the shuttles?"

  "Damn right we are. That's mine."

  Jane checked her watch. "Twenty hours. There's no way you and I and the few other people we can trust can sound out literally hundreds of other people to see who wants to go."

  "We don't have to ask everybody -."

  "We have to ask a lot of them! I don't want to leave someone who really wants to go. And we'll need every person we can get. We'll need them for their skills, and their ability to do manual labor, and just for simple genetic diversity. Right?"

  Greg bit his lip. "There's only one way to do this. We handle it like a propagating message. I sound out two people, who each sound out two people, and so on."

  Gayle frowned. "That's very risky. If the wrong person hears, we can be stopped."

  "What else can we do? Besides, one virtue of life on the Terra is we know our neighbors. Look, we'll use a password. Nobody gets the password until whoever sounds them out is sure they're with us. Up to that point, the discussion can just be written off as discontent and Magerty will think that'll be undercut when the Terra leaves, right? But anyone we're sure of will get the password and be told that when they get it they need to head for the landers."

  "So what's the password?"

  Greg hesitated, thinking of how they'd be violating the Rules which had governed their entire lives, and leaving the controlled comfort of the Terra for a future of uncertainty and toil on the planet beneath them. "'Forbidden fruit.' That'll be the password that we're leaving."

  #

  The elder standing watch at the hull systems panel glanced down at Greg. "You found that problem, yet?"

  "Almost."

  "I hadn't noticed anything wrong."

  "It showed up during a remote diagnostic." Greg tried to keep his voice calm, almost bored. "Maybe it was just an intermittent thing, or a false reading, but the Rules say you have to follow-up. Even if it is the middle of the night and I should be asleep with most everybody else."

  "That's right. It's good to see you kids taking the Rules seriously."

  Greg offered the watch stander a hopefully sincere-looking smile, then continued the careful job of bypassing the alert systems which would otherwise provide warning the landers were being accessed and powered up. A final connection, a final check, and he nodded with real satisfaction. "That's got it."

  The elder was already losing interest. "Everything's okay, now?"

  "Just how it needs to be." Greg left the area, trying to suppress a wild grin, then checked the time. Three hours. He'd already bypassed the secondary watch panel, as well as the panel in the main control room where an unacknowledged alert would eventually present itself. He headed for the lander access area.

  "Jane? How's it going?"

  His friend twitched wildly at the question, then glared at him. "Greg Tyre, do me the favor of not sneaking up on me!"

  "Sorry. I've finished the alert bypasses."

  "Great." She raised her data unit and punched in a command. "I've sent out the password. People should start showing up real soon. Gayle's already got people here ready to start warming the landers. Nobody asked what you were doing?"

  "A couple of people. I gave them a remote problem detection story and they didn't question it."

  Gayle Trey and a couple of others came to join them. "Why should they? Nobody makes waves on the Terra. Nobody breaks the Rules. Not if they know what's good for them and don't want to be shunned by their neighbors."

  A short woman standing beside the pilot and dressed in the deep blue of the security forces smiled tightly. "And they'd usually get caught, because their neighbors would tell. Don't worry. I'm an old friend of Gayle's, and I'm on your side. I've seen how the Terra's society works from the enforcement side. I don't like it. I want my kids to have freedom."

  Jane nodded. "Did you rig the surveillance systems for this area?"

  "Yes. They're showing an endless loop of the last hour's recorded activity instead of actually monitoring the area. And since that hour included absolutely no activity, everything will look fine to my soon-to-be former co-workers."

  Greg exhaled heavily, staring at the security woman. "I never thought of that. I guess we're lucky you're coming along."

  Another smile. "I suppose so. You'll need cops on the surface, too, I expect."

  A large man pushed his way forward. "Hopefully not." He glared around. "In case anybody cares, I've severed the control lines running from all remote locations to this area. Even if they find out what we're doing, they won't be able to stop us at the last minute by powering down the landers or something." Another glare. "I'm tired of people telling me what to do." The man turned and made his toward a lander entry bay.

  Greg glanced at Jane and spoke softly so his voice wouldn't carry. "Did you see the look in that guy's eyes when he said he was tired of people telling him what to do?"

  "Yeah. I guess freedom from conformity may have its downside in terms of some people."

  People began arriving in the lander area, in small groups for the most part, including families urged on by one or both parents. All moved furtively, constantly glancing around. Gayle greeted a few, exchanging thumbs-up gestures. "More pilots. Good people to have," she advised Greg.

  "I bet. I noticed a family resemblance."

  "I told you my kids would get to fly."

  "Have you noticed the ages of these people?"

  "You mean the mix of elders and youth? Sure. There's more younger ones, but not everybody gets beaten into conformity by age." She eyed the stream of arrivals, biting her lower lip. "There's a lot. Has anybody been keeping count?"

  Jane rubbed her forehead and consulted her data unit. "I've counted five landers filled and ready to go."

  "Huh. And there's at least a couple of hundred more lining up. Looks like we might get up to a quarter of Terra's people. Cool."

  Greg shook his head, staring at the people jostling into the access area. "Won't security see these people? I mean, they've got to be noticing all the traffic through the corridors."

  "Depends if they're awake and watching or not. My friend the cop says they usually watch movies on this shift because nothing ever happens. And why should they expect anything different to happen tonight?"

  "What if somebody told the wrong person?"

  "If that'd happened, security'd already be here, right?"

  "Or they'd be massing just out of sight."

  The pilot shrugged. "If they charge, we slam the hatches and bolt. Too bad for those still outside, but I've no intention of letting the social programs people work me over."

  "I can't blame you." Greg grimaced. "Social programs. There's somebody I forgot to tell."

  Gayle checked her watch. "You've got maybe forty-five minutes before we're scheduled to go. But we might have to go earlier."

  "I know. But I can't leave a friend."

  Greg ran, along corridors which grew steadily more familiar, until he reached Carl's room. He hung on the buzzer until Carl, blinking sleep from his eyes, opened to door. "Carl. The town council decided to leave this planet and head for the secondary objective. We're bolting the Terra. Taking some landers. Come on."

  Carl stared back at him. "You're not serious. Are you?"

  "Yes! Come on. We're leaving soon."

  "Wait a minute. Who's 'we'? How many people are you talking about?"

  "I don't know exactly. Hundreds. Come on. This is our only chance for freedom, for change."

  "Greg, if the council made the decision to leave, then they represent the entire populace. We have to respect that. We have to work together. No individual can put their wishes ahead of the group's, ahead of everyone else on the Terra."

  Greg
reached for Carl's arm. "Drop the social program cant, for heaven's sake. Let's go."

  Carl's own hand came up and grabbed onto Greg's. "No. Let's go inside. Security has to know. It's for the best of everyone. Really."

  "Let go of me!" Greg yanked back against Carl's grip, realizing as he did so that getting free would require a big fight, one certain to attract the attention of the security cameras monitoring this area. "Carl -."

  "Greg, you can't do this."

  A lifetime of resentment suddenly surged to the surface. "Don't tell me I can't make my own decisions, you son of a bitch!"

  "I'm not -." Carl's eyes widened in surprise. Greg felt a smooth tube run next to his body, then Carl's body spasmed. Greg broke free, his own arm and hand tingling from the shock transmitted through Carl's grip, and turned to see Jane standing behind him with a security stun baton in one hand.

  She stepped forward and jabbed the tip into Carl again, ensuring he was unconscious, then pushed his body inside and slid the door closed. "I told you so. Good thing Gayle told me you'd gone to get a friend, and I decided to come here in case this happened."

  "Where'd you get that thing?"

  "Gayle's security friend lent it to me. Come on. We've only got a few minutes left, even assuming this incident didn't attract anyone's attention."

  They ran. An occasional person saw them, watching with curiosity as Greg and Jane hurtled by. As the entrance to the lander area came into view, they saw there were still a couple of dozen people funneling in. A moment later, pulsing red lights flared to life and speakers shouted out words which echoed through the quiet corridors. "Security alert. Security alert. Seal all hatches. All inhabitants of Terra remain in your current location. Warning. All landers are nonfunctional. I repeat, all landers are nonfunctional. Do not attempt to use them. Warning."

  Gayle leaned out, her expression worried, then smiling as she spotted Greg and Jane. "What a relief. Get in here. Everybody!" she shouted, as some of the others hesitated in almost-instinctual obedience to the orders the speakers had given. One man paused, then turned and ran back the way he'd come. The others crowded in, Greg last. Gayle physically pulled him inside, pushing the hatch shut even as she did so. "They're right behind you. Get this thing sealed."

  Greg put his shoulder to the hatch, helping her slam it shut, then hastily punched the button sealing the hatch tight. "How do we keep them from opening it before we get to the shuttle? They've got to have an override."

  "They do," Gayle confirmed. "Jane, you still got that stun baton? Thanks." She popped the access on the hatch controls, shoved the baton's tip inside among the circuitry, then flinched as sparks and smoke flew. "Hopefully that'll buy us a few minutes. Let's go."

  Another dash, across the short distance remaining to the shuttle bay, while the last families who'd made it inside hurled themselves into the nearest landers. The large man who'd boasted of severing the control links was standing in one lander's hatch, laughing in booming tones. "They tried to shut everything down! They couldn't! I stopped them! I finally beat the bastards!"

  "Great," Gayle yelled. "Get in that lander and go!" She paused at the entrance to the shuttle, punching an intercom. "All landers depart immediately. Hit the launch control. The landers will seal their hatches and stagger their launches automatically. The landing area's already programmed in." She glanced back. "There goes that hatch."

  Greg followed her look, watching as white hot metal flared away on all sides of the hatch. Off to one side, he could see some of the lander hatches sliding shut with agonizing deliberation. Then the closing airlock shut off his view and he was scrambling for a seat along with Jane and a few other stragglers.

  The last buckle had barely been snapped when Gayle's voice sounded through the shuttle's intercom. "They're at the airlock. Everybody better be ready, because we're out of here!" The shuttle lurched, falling free from the Terra. "Okay, I see four, no, five landers already out. There goes number six. I don't think they can stop any of them, now."

  In her seat, Jane seemed to be simultaneously laughing and sobbing. "We made it. We're free. We're free."

  Greg stared at the shuttle's walls around him. Free? Somehow, that felt more different than anything he'd encountered on the planet they'd soon land on.

  #

  A long plume of light strung across the night sky, as if a comet were passing close to the planet. Greg stood silently watching that light, along with hundreds of others. The evening breeze felt milder than during his first visit to the planet, but also colder.

  "They're leaving," Jane murmured. "They didn't even try to get us back. No promises. No threats. They're just leaving."

  "They're probably glad to be rid of us. All the malcontents. Magerty's probably as happy as he's ever been."

  "He can't be happy about losing the landers and all the supplies and equipment in them."

  "It's not like he could've gotten them back. And all those supplies and equipment are to support a colony. Our colony."

  "I guess." Jane lowered her gaze to the land around them. The wind made rushing noises as it passed around the bulk of the landers. Someone swore and slapped at an insect. "I hope those supplies include warmer clothes. It's a little cold."

  "Yeah. Jackets and coats." He pulled her close. "I hope this helps for now."

  "A little. What do we do now?"

  "Figure out who's in charge. We'll need some sort of leadership. Decide how to govern ourselves. Decide if this is the best place for the colony or if we should shift the landers. Gayle says they can lift long enough to move maybe a hundred kilometers if need be, and we probably want to be closer to a forest so we don't have to haul lumber a long ways. Get the lander incubators going for the animal zygotes in deep freeze -."

  "Thanks, but I meant you and me when I said 'we.' Do you want to get married?"

  "Sure, as soon as -." Greg smiled. "I was going to say, as soon as we both hit thirty. But we don't have to wait anymore, do we? That Rule's gone."

  "Like a lot of others, I'm sure. Did we do the right thing, Greg? There's maybe a thousand of us here. Maybe a few more, but that's a lot smaller colony than the ancestors planned on, and we're completely on our own. What'll tomorrow bring, and the day after?"

  "I don't know." He stared at her, then started laughing. "For the first time since I was born on the Terra, I don't know what tomorrow will bring. I don't know what I'll see. Isn't it great?"

  She laughed, too, and hugged him. "Yeah. But I know one thing tomorrow will bring for sure."

  "What's that?"

  "I'm going to find some more rocks. I've got a lot to learn about this world our kids are going to inherit."

  Author's Note on Kyrie Eleison

  This ancient phrase actually predates Christianity and was incorporated into Christian worship, which is why “Kyrie Eleison” is the only Greek in the Latin Mass. It literally means “Lord Have Mercy” and was used to end prayers before being replaced by Amen. That impressed me, because I saw a humility in Kyrie Eleison, a recognition that we couldn’t control the divine or compel it. Just, whatever You do, please have mercy on us. There always seem to be some people who claim to be especially favored, though, and sometimes when dealing with other people mercy seems too far from their thoughts.

  Kyrie Eleison

  Frost rimmed the large, thick windows looking out over a cliff and down to dark water flecked by whitecaps. Sleet rattled against heavy stone walls as an erratic wind swept by. Low on the horizon, a reddish sun glowed through a rare small rent in the clouds that otherwise covered the sky, casting long shadows across the room where Garvis Skein lay abed, snoring heavily under the pile of blankets he favored for warmth.

  Francesa walked quietly into the room, her uncovered feet making almost no sound, ignoring with the stoicism of years of experience the searing cold on the soles of her feet whenever she had to leave the comparative comfort of a rug’s surface and cross bare stone. Working silently and swiftly, she pulled tinder and coal from
the bag she carried and, kneeling in front of the stone fireplace in one corner, got a fire going with efficiency born of long practice.

  Garvis stirred under his covers. Francesa froze, her breathing as shallow and quiet as possible. The fire popped, and Garvis’ eyes opened, frowning at the ornate designs carved into the ceiling. The eyes slowly pivoted, coming to rest on Francesa. The man’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. “You have broken a rule,” he muttered. “Noisemaking during sleep period. Inform the duty Officer so he may order the appropriate punishment.”

  Francesa bowed her head silently, then brought her right hand up to touch her forehead. “Aye.”

  “Go away.” Garvis turned to settle under his blankets.

  Francesa snarled at his back, knowing the man wouldn’t move again until the fire had warmed the room. Then she left as silently as possible.

  Officer Varasan was lingering over breakfast when Francesa found him. One look at her expression and he sighed heavily. “Now what?”

  Francesa stood before him, trying not to notice the crumbs on the shirt that stretched over his belly. Her stomach threatened to rumble, something she tried to silence with every fiber of her being. On those few occasions when she and her like were granted good bread, their sunken stomachs offered no purchase for any crumb. “I made a sound, Officer,” she stated tonelessly. “Before call to work.”

  Varasan sighed again. As Officers went, he wasn’t so bad, Francesa thought. But he was an Officer. “Where?”

  “The chamber of the First Officer.”

  This time Officer Varasan flinched. “Stars, girl, couldn’t you have picked a less important place?” He let out a long breath of air, a gust the warmth of which actually brushed against Francesa. “Though as you well know every place is less important than that.” He toyed with a remnant of pastry, oblivious to the way Francesa couldn’t avoid staring toward it. “Two lashes. After the morning Report.”

  Francesa’s body tensed, then she nodded, once again bringing her right hand to her brow. “Two lashes. After the morning Report.”