Dark Secret (2016)

by Edward M. Lerner

  Antonio did not understand people. He knew that. Just the attempt—seldom successful—to parse facial expressions could exhaust him. He had barely managed to give lectures at the university.

  His right hand, unbidden, rose to his chin. He began stroking the long, jagged scar that connected him still with Tabitha. How could he be father to thousands?

  (“Short words, honey,” she would counsel when he couldn’t get out of giving a lecture or a public talk. “Simple, direct sentences. You’ll do fine.”)

  “Build a society. From…scratch. Do we know how?” he asked Li.

  “We’ll figure it out,” Li said confidently.

  How had he ever imagined the worst would be over once they escaped Mars?

  “It’s quite fascinating,” she continued. “I expect that the first children we raise will help tend to their younger cohorts. Some of them, anyway. Others of the firstborn will contribute to supplying the material needs of the settlement. And in time the children will have opinions, too, as to what our priorities should be. Nor will they always be children. Fascinating.”

  “I’m still overwhelmed by all the dirty diapers.” And scared shitless myself.

  “Then get some sleep.” Li rolled onto her back. “Goodnight again.”

  “Good advice and good…night.”

  Only Antonio never did fall asleep. Twelve thousand. The number echoed in his brain.

  When he quit trying, when he got up to contend with the more tractable, somehow friendlier, number of nearby stars, he could not shake the oddest impression.

  That Li had been awake the entire time, observing him. And that their conversation was not at all as casual as it had seemed.

  *

  Li studied her datasheet, stylus in hand, surreptitiously studying Dana. You could not be a therapist without the ability to read and take notes while observing a subject.

  Not that Dana was formally a subject. In fact, Dana was studying Li. They had the galley/commons to themselves—and by the way Carlos had scuttled off at Dana’s entrance, the coming tête-à-tête was no mere happenstance.

  “What have you got there?” Dana asked.

  Li looked up and smiled. “Earth history.” She went back to her reading.

  Dana filled a drink bulb. “Would you mind if I join you?”

  “Please do.” Li folded her datasheet.

  Dana sat across the table from Li. “Earth history. A very broad subject.”

  Dana doubtless imagined herself being subtle. She had never admitted to having personnel files, but of course she did. Neil Hawthorne had had his reasons for kidnapping this particular crew; he would not have left his surrogate uninformed.

  Let’s show you something about subtlety, Li thought. Not that I expect you to notice. “Yes, a long history. Many accomplishments. Many lessons learned. It’s hard to take in that so much has come to an end.”

  “Aren’t we continuing that history?”

  “In the sense of biological continuity, I can’t argue. Assuming we’re successful, of course. But in any deeper way? I have yet to see that.”

  “We survived. Survival had to come first.”

  “You caught me in an introspective mood, Dana. I didn’t mean to imply any criticism. What you have accomplished is little short of miraculous.”

  Compliments discomfited Dana’s type; Li let her squirm. You have something to ask me, Dana? Then ask.

  “You and I are very different people, aren’t we?” Dana finally said.

  “How is that?”

  “I don’t answer questions with questions.”

  “Touché,” Li said, laughing.

  “We talk. I enjoy your company well enough. I respect you. Still, I know nothing about you. After so much time together, that strikes me as, well, not an accident.”

  “How does that make you feel?”

  “Damn it, Li, I’m not on your couch.”

  “Habit. It slipped out,” Li lied. She’d intended the clichéd question as a goad, and it had worked.

  “I’m sure I lapse into habit, too.” Dana sighed. “Let’s try this. You and I are two of the last six human beings in the universe. We’ll need all our strengths to start a colony. As we’ve seen: without you, I think we would have lost Carlos.”

  “Circling back to the two of us being quite different.”

  “I come from a military background. No secret there, but maybe there’s more to it than I’ve volunteered. Dad was Space Guard, too. Dad’s mother flew in the ASE Force. I guess Dad and Gram were made of sterner stuff than I. When I left the Guard, no way was I going to retire to Earth’s gravity.”

  A self-deprecating admission, to encourage Li to share. How adorably amateurish. How patently obvious.

  Li said, “You wanted to know why I came to Mars? Let’s just say I chose to put some distance between me and a messy break-up.”

  Messy enough to put her practice, even her med license, at risk. Messy enough to invoke Mother’s influence in smoothing things over. And Li had gotten that help, too. For a price. She had been ordered far enough away that Mother would never face such “embarrassment” again.

  Well, Mother, I was just as disappointed, learning the hard way that the Famous Radical Free Thinker could be so conventional. So…Victorian. I mean, who was hurt, really?

  None of which Li had any intention of sharing.

  She went on, “And if you’re curious about my family tree, you could just ask.”

  Anger flared in Dana’s eyes. “I’m frustrated that I have to ask.”

  “To my knowledge, I’ve followed your every order, Captain. Now I’m supposed to anticipate your curiosity?”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Dana snapped.

  And Li had Dana where she wanted her.

  “Yes, we are different,” Li said.

  Hawthorne’s files would have reported that Li’s mother was political. That Li had made a few unsuccessful runs for municipal office, back on Earth. That while she had not run for office on Mars, she had become influential behind the scenes in the Social Justice Party.

  What Dana truly wondered? Whether Li meant to compete here for authority.

  Li continued, “Here we are, the sole survivors. The last, best hope of humankind. Here’s what strikes me. That we’ve not had one conversation about what it means to be human, or civilized, or how the colony-to-be can best preserve our heritage. It saddens me.”

  “You never said anything.”

  “Could I, without undermining your authority? Your priorities aren’t a big secret.”

  Dana frowned. “I’m doing my damnedest to keep us alive. To bring us somewhere safe, no matter that we have yet to find a haven. If on occasion I overlook longer-term goals, people need to remind me. You need to remind me.”

  “That’s good to hear.” But not quite where I want your mind to go. Li waited.

  “So tell me, what does it mean to be human?” Dana glanced at her wrist. “In ten minutes or less.”

  “I never claimed to be a philosopher.” Li patted her folded datasheet. “I find comfort in reading them, though.”

  Dana said, “I haven’t had a lot of time to read. But maybe, while Antonio and Rikki go on about their survey…”

  “‘Had we but world enough, or time.’”

  “What’s that?” Dana asked.

  “A classical lament.” From a poem about sex and seduction, not study, but none of Li’s shipmates were of a type to know that. Take the hint, Dana.

  “Enough time,” Dana said wistfully, and stood. “I’m glad we had this talk. We few have endured all this for a purpose. I appreciate the reminder. But me reading philosophy? I wouldn’t know where to begin. Can you offer some suggestions?”

  “Of course.”

  Dana walked away, then hesitated in the hatchway. “You proposed soon after we left Mars that the crew rename this ship. That turned out to be an excellent idea.”

  “I’m happy I could help.” You’re almost where I want you, Dana. Now tak
e the final step.

  “World enough, or time,” Dana mused aloud.

  “So it goes,” Li said.

  “What if…?”

  “If what, Dana?”

  “Suppose we all begin discussing candidate names. Planets and moons. Continents and oceans. Mountains and rivers and reefs. Everything will need a place name once we find our new home. Suppose we let those names remind us, and instruct us, about our past accomplishments. Maybe, great thinkers. Maybe, philosophers. Or poets. Or scientists.”

  Li grinned. “I like it. If your proposal doesn’t get everyone thinking about humanity’s great accomplishments, and whom from our history we should honor, and whom we should strive to emulate, I can’t imagine what will.”

  “Thanks again, Li. Net me that reading list.” And then Dana was gone.

  No, thank you, Captain.

  Because you are about to set off a tidal wave of independent thinking.

  18

  Carlos had avoided cargo hold three since the day he’d been carried out strapped to a stretcher. The other two holds were crammed; apart from the central corridor, no place else aboard would have accommodated all of them.

  He would rather have stood on the ladder.

  Instead, grinding his teeth, making himself stand tall, he followed the others into the hold. He took a spot beside Li, between two cold-sleep pods.

  “Is everyone comfortable?” Dana began.

  Yeah, right. He’d gengineered a virus to mod the software in his nanites, but it remained mere theory that addled med bots had all but killed him in cold sleep.

  Li said, “I believe I can speak for everyone in answering, ‘No.’”

  “Fair enough,” Dana said amid chuckles. “We have something important to talk about. Just maybe, Antonio and Rikki have found our new home.”

  That brought a smile to Carlos’s face.

  Antonio said, “Marvin. Image…one.”

  Someone had magneted a datasheet to the hold’s forward bulkhead. At Antonio’s halting request, the display came to life.

  The parallel black lines, irregularly spaced, reminded Carlos of something he had once seen in a museum. Some kind of ancient product identifier.

  “Absorption lines,” Antonio explained. “A glimpse of atmospheric composition. The constituent gases…gases…”

  “Would you like me to explain?” Rikki asked.

  “No thanks.” Antonio added something under his breath.

  Carlos thought the mumble might have been, “Short words.” And could there have been something about twelve?

  Antonio went on, “We’ve been surveying nearby stars. The lines are spectrographic data about a planet we observed crossing in front…of its star. The planet’s atmosphere absorbs…some of the starlight. Each gas absorbs at its own characteristic…wavelengths.”

  “And these gases are?” Li asked.

  Rikki beamed. “Oxygen, nitrogen, and hints of water vapor.”

  Like Earth’s atmosphere, then. Only Dana had started off this session with a just maybe. What was the bad news? Carlos asked, “What does the planet look like?”

  Antonio choked on at least three answers, or justifications, or excuses, before sputtering to a halt. After a deep breath, he got out, “We can’t see it.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Rikki said. “This does: the planet has an oxygen-rich atmosphere. Without replenishment, an atmosphere doesn’t retain oh-two. As happened on Mars, the oxygen gets trapped as oxide in the rocks. So we know this world has oxygen-producing life. The water vapor suggests oceans, too.”

  Carlos reserved judgment on whether distant gases mattered. “Where is this world?”

  Antonio said, “About fourteen light-years…from here. Toward the Coalsack.”

  Li shivered.

  Dana said, “I remember as well as anyone that we set out to go four light-years. But consider the experience we’ve gained. We know Endeavour is good for the distance. We know that the cold-sleep pods are good for the distance. And we—”

  Opinions differ about how well the pods work, Carlos thought. “How long do you anticipate it would take to get there?”

  “Twenty to thirty years,” Dana said, “which allows for decelerating on the other side. Without a cosmic string to follow, we’ll experience relativistic effects. We don’t know how the DED performs in those circumstances. I’m not inclined to stress the drive.”

  Blake said, “In my opinion, we should get moving sooner rather than later.”

  “Not so fast,” Carlos said. “We’ve only been surveying for a few days. Might there be something better, closer?” Someplace we could reach without the cold-sleep pods?

  “A fair question.” Dana said. “Antonio?”

  “The nearest star is five light-years from us. That star is a red dwarf. It could be a flare star, as many…red dwarfs are. Regardless, very cool. Its liquid-water zone will be very narrow. Almost surely it has no habitable planets.”

  “Does it have planets?” Carlos asked.

  Antonio shrugged.

  “Do any nearby stars have planets?” Li asked. She laughed uncertainly, as if at the absurdity of applying nearby to objects light-years-distant.

  “Statistically, several…should,” Antonio said. “That’s based on what we know about solar systems. With our instruments, the challenge is…spotting them.”

  Because we need more challenge, Carlos thought. The universe has taken it so easy on us thus far. “Maybe you could explain that.”

  Antonio looked pleadingly at Rikki. She nodded.

  “We can’t see planets,” Rikki said. “Not with this telescope. Not at anything near these distances. That brings us to an indirect method, the way astronomers found the first extrasolar worlds. We look for stars that wobble back and forth from the tug of their orbiting planets.

  “We won’t know what we have, though, until we see the full cycle of a wobble. If a planet takes, as an example, a standard year to orbit its star, we’d need half that time to deduce its orbit. And till we understand a planet’s orbit, until we compare that orbit to the luminance of the star, we can’t begin to guess whether the planet is in the habitable zone.”

  “Six months cooped up in this tin can?” Blake said. “We don’t have the supplies for that.”

  “You’re right, we don’t,” Dana said.

  “Then how did you two spot the oxygen planet?” Carlos asked.

  “There’s another method for spotting planets.” Rikki tipped her head, furrowed her forehead, choosing her words. “Imagine a planet that’s crossing between its star and our ship. We can’t see the planet—it’s too small and it’s lost in the glare—but from our vantage point it covers a bit of the star. The starlight we see dips just a little. The duration of the dimming implies how fast the planet is moving, from which the full orbital period is estimated. And sometimes, as in this case, we capture the faint absorption lines of starlight viewed through a planetary atmosphere.”

  Carlos said, “A planet that happens to cross in front of its star? It sounds like we’d have to be lucky to find anything that way.”

  “You’re right,” Blake said. “We were lucky. If we had the supplies, we could sit here for years without finding a better possible home. And maybe not find any.”

  Five light-years to the nearest star, Carlos thought. Fourteen to the nearest candidate habitable planet. He could die in the pod the next time. But for certain, he’d starve to death if he refused.

  When push came to shove, what choice did he have?

  “Oxygen and water,” Li said. “Do we have anything more to go on?”

  “By inference,” Antonio said. “The star is…K class. Orange, like Alpha Centauri B would have been. By quite straightforward math we—”

  “Skip the math,” Carlos snapped.

  Skipping the math rendered Antonio speechless. He turned again to Rikki for help.

  She said, “The planet orbits maybe a tenth closer to its primary than Earth does to the sun. But
this star is only half as luminous as Sol, so the planet we glimpsed may be cold. But maybe not. Even trace amounts of some greenhouse gases will warm a planet substantially—and water vapor is a greenhouse gas. Oh, and the planet may be a tad larger than Earth.

  “That’s where the data run out. Does the planet have moons? What’s its land-to-sea ratio? Are there other planets in the system? We have no idea.”

  “‘The planet,’” Li echoed. “‘Its primary.’ I thought we had agreed on some names.”

  Carlos said, “Me, too. For certain, I thought we’d converged on Plato as the name for whatever star we end up at.”

  Li turned, looking surprised. She patted his hand. “Thank you, Carlos.”

  After that misunderstanding back in Sol system, he must be the last person she would have expected to support her. But that was light-years and decades ago. Since then, she had saved his life.

  Plato, Pluto, Plutarch, or Pippi Longstocking—what the hell did he care what anyone called the star? If calling it Plato fixed things up with Li—

  And if he made it out of the pod alive—

  There weren’t enough women left in the universe.

  “Let’s hold off on names,” Dana said. “Antonio and Rikki recommend that we set a course for this planet. You’ve heard what they’ve learned. You’ve heard why we’re unlikely to find somewhere better, or closer, even if we keep searching. Does anyone disagree?”

  No one did.

  “Excellent,” Dana said. “As there is nothing to be gained by delay, as soon as Marvin has navigational guidance for the trip we’ll—”

  “Excuse me, Captain,” Carlos said. “There is something to be gained. Before I go under, it would be prudent for Blake to take more training on programming nanites and using the synth vats.” Because next time, I may not come out alive. And because Blake can’t make a glass of milk that will stay down, much less do gengineering or other precision work.

  Dana nodded. “I’m confident you’ll be fine, Carlos, but to be extra safe we can afford a few days. Barring equipment emergencies, Blake’s top priority will be to take more training from you. Will three days suffice?”

  You’re confident of my safety, are you? I still plan to enjoy my last cigar before we go. “Yes, Captain,” Carlos said. “I can promise that by then he’ll know a lot more about using the synthesis equipment.”