Gravlander

by Erik Wecks

  Soren pursed her lips and looked at Freddi. “How long do you think it will take to get this project ready?”

  “A few months, at least.”

  Katy followed up. “Before we can even start, we need to contact the guy in charge on the planet. I don’t remember his name. Something Neilson, I think. Anyway, we need to see if he even wants us to do this, and if they will agree to our terms. Otherwise I think the whole thing is the same kind of top-down project that we’ve done in the past. But I think before we even do that, there’s another thing that we have to accomplish.”

  “And what may that be?” Soren asked.

  “We need to have a way to deal with the Unity. If we’re going to do this, we need to plan for the day when it all goes horribly wrong.”

  “Yes, we do.” Soren gestured to a nodding Freddi. “If we do this, we become a spy ship again. Are we ready to put that burden back on the crew?”

  “I think so. I trust my staff. We’ve put them under strain before, and none of them have cracked. Hell, any one of them could turn us in right now and have us all executed for all the smuggling that we do, but none of them have. I don’t think it really changes much.”

  “You’re right,” said Soren. “Although, to Katy’s point, if we become a spy ship again, we need to have an exit plan.”

  “Agreed. You and I can talk more on that later. I have an idea about that, but I think it has to be a need-to-know thing.”

  Soren turned to Katy. “Assuming Neilson agrees, Katy, will you be ready?”

  Something in Soren’s tone made Katy shift uncomfortably. “Ready how?”

  “I guess I mean emotionally ready. If I let you do this, can you be ready to be on your own again in a hostile place in five months?”

  Katy felt the knot in her stomach tighten. “A typical course of anti-trauma drugs usually lasts for about six months. I’m in month two. I should be finished by the time this project is ready.”

  Soren frowned a little, leaned forward, and continued to look into Katy’s eyes. “And the drugs require you to embrace regular skills classes and therapy to reach their full effects, right? How’s counseling going?”

  “I’m doing my best. I’m just not sure that I can change things.”

  Soren smiled. “I wouldn’t expect you to believe it possible to change yet. All I need to know is that you are still willing to do the work.”

  “Yes, I am. I believe I have to, if I ever want to feel comfortable in my skin. I’ve given away a lot of my power to people who I blamed for hurting me. I just don’t want to live that way anymore. It isn’t effective.”

  Soren sat back and smiled calmly. “That’s good enough for me.” Looking at Freddi, she said, “You have a go.”

  20

  Leaving Again

  Katy looked herself in the eye in the bathroom mirror in her shared quarters on the Clarion as a great wave of panic washed over her. She chose to greet it with gentle acceptance. It’s understandable. I’m leaving today.

  Instead of dwelling on the sticky darkness of an unknowable future, Katy slowly reached up and clasped the tangible presence of her mother’s necklace hanging around her neck. Since recovering it from the Timcree woman in the market on Korg Haran, she had worn it constantly, unwilling to let it out of her sight. According to her mother, the small blue-and-orange opal contained there had been in her family for hundreds of years. Furthermore, family legend maintained that the gem and the gold were of Martian origin. In fact, the opal was said to come from the Marias Pass opal mine sometime not too long after the colony declared its independence from Earth. If the story were true, Katy could have sold the necklace for a shocking fortune. More likely, the Unity would have simply taken it in the name of the state, declaring it a galactic treasure, or something like that. Katy wore it to remember her mother.

  But Katy chose not to dwell on any of this, instead letting her mind drift onward like a leaf in a stream. She returned her thoughts to the colors of the gem, tracing their minute ebbs and flows with her eyes. Lifting the small gem from her neck, Katy held it up to the mirror and leaned closer, drifting in its milky blue depths and flecks of orange and red. Rest could be had here, not in a chaotic future she could neither divine nor control.

  Alia stuck her head into their shared bathroom. “It’s time.”

  Katy noticed the quiver in Alia’s voice. Now that the moment had arrived, Alia wasn’t so sure about this, either.

  Katy nodded to show that she had heard her. “Give me a second.”

  Alia stepped out of the bathroom, letting the door close behind her.

  Katy took a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly, enjoying the peaceful feeling as she exhaled. She’d never respected the simple act of breathing until Soren had focused her attention on it. Katy smirked at herself in the mirror. Truth is, I haven’t really been paying attention to anything around me. I’ve been too busy running from all the bad feelings inside. Feeling the self-focused anger rush in, Katy quietly went on, intentionally approaching the next thought without judgment. But that’s to be expected considering everything I went through, and I have a choice about the present, not the past. Katy took another deliberate breath and then stepped out into their shared quarters.

  Alia busied herself with zipping up her duffel bag. She was facing away from Katy, but something about the hunch of her shoulders told Katy that she was having a hard time.

  “Are you going to miss this place?”

  Alia didn’t turn to face her but stopped zipping up her bag. “Yeah … I am. It’s been my home for eight years. I kinda grew up here.”

  “Well, hopefully it will be only for a few months, just until the ship can come back and pick up the first container.”

  Alia turned around and leaned back into the bag behind her. “Will it? Maybe for you, but I’m not sure I’m ever going to be comfortable coming back as long as Todd’s on board.”

  Katy wasn’t sure what to say. The ongoing tension between Todd and Alia had certainly made for some awkward moments on the Clarion in the last five months.

  “I’ve tried to forgive him, Katy. I really have. I mean, he told me about it almost as soon as he left your office, and I know he feels terrible, but he cheated on me, and gave me an STI, and I don’t know that I want to forgive that.”

  Katy nodded, letting her own emotion creep into her voice just a little. “Yeah, I understand. There are things that I don’t want to forgive, either.” Katy remained silent for a moment. She hesitated. She wasn’t sure if this was the time to speak up or not. She decided to take the risk. “I guess maybe forgiveness has nothing to do with Todd and nothing to do with being with him. Maybe forgiveness is for you.”

  Alia grunted. Katy wasn’t quite sure whether it was in agreement or simple acknowledgment.

  Grateful that Alia had at least allowed her suggestion to stand unchallenged, Katy picked up her bag and stepped into the corridor.

  Alia soon followed.

  A lot had changed in the central corridor in the last four months. At this moment, it was flashing a bright red. Down the corridor, Freddi was up on a ladder working with one of her assistants, putting the last touches on the change in lighting.

  Alia smiled. “I won’t miss drills.”

  Katy chuckled. “This is nothing. You should have been in the Ghost Fleet.”

  “Nothing? I think we did at least one simulated emergency drop each day last week, and that doesn’t count the actual partial drop that we did on our way in to Turner.”

  Katy was laughing now. “Okay, so there’s Neela, and then there’s the rest of the staff.”

  As they made their way toward the airlock that would lead them to a container and then the surface, Katy noticed Alia looking sideways at her. “You’ve changed, Katy. You know that?”

  Katy hated hearing this. Alia wasn’t the first to say it. In fact, in their last meeting just a few hours before, Soren had made a point of bringing it up as well. The frustrating part was that Katy h
erself didn’t feel like she’d changed that much at all. She was still touchy, moody, and prone to self-doubt. Often it felt like all the changes were on the surface but only skin deep. Katy tried to keep the cynicism out of her tone. She was only partly successful. “Thanks.”

  “No, I mean it. You’re different. You seem more content or something.”

  “Everyone says that, but half the time I feel like I’m faking it.”

  “Fake it ‘til you make it?”

  Katy laughed again. “Something like that.”

  As the end of the container unsealed itself with a huff, Katy recognized the particular tang of Salvador’s air, a mix of salt and something else, possibly ozone. This time of year, the temperature was crisp in the southern latitudes, somewhere just under 10 degrees celcius.

  As the door crept open, an anticipated if unwelcome wave of panic slowly passed over Katy. Last time she had been here, things hadn’t gone so well. She found it difficult not to imagine a squad of oversized men waiting to club her to death when the door came down. Her heart raced. Releasing her HeFAR, she took the device out of her mouth and undid the harness that had kept her lashed to her jump seat during the descent.

  Instead of a squad, only Lars Neilson and one other man that Katy didn’t recognize greeted them on the hard-packed red dirt of Salvador. Hands on his hips and frowning, Neilson didn’t exactly give Katy a warm and fuzzy impression, but he’d been the same way when they’d met in the intraspace cafe to discuss her arrival. His aloofness wasn’t exactly helped by his title, either. Having grown up since the age of four in the now-destroyed Empire, Katy had heard the term before, but such titles were distinctly non-corporate and disliked by the ascendant Unity. In popular culture, titles like president, governor, or senator had a bit of a dictatorial air about them, whereas titles like director or vice president were considered more friendly, approachable. Katy wasn’t sure she could trust a man who called himself governor.

  The man with Neilson was short and balding, with a sharp nose and narrow eyes. She could make nothing of his expression.

  When the slow door landed on the ground with a loud thunk and a cloud of red dust, the large ginger-haired man stepped forward. He wore an almost neutral expression, but his ice-blue eyes looked wary. “Well, I have to say that I never expected to see you back here. It was quite a shock to get your message, and even then I didn’t believe you would follow through until now.”

  It was the reaction she had expected when she agreed to come back with food, medicine, and a soil reclamator. Katy stood still, keeping her posture calm and natural. “Well, I was equally surprised to be sending it.”

  Katy watched Neilson’s eyes narrow. “Why did you send it, then? Why did you come back?”

  “As I already told you, I have some unfinished business here. I made a promise that I would come back with medicine, and that’s what I’ve done, enough for everyone.” Katy tried to stand up a little straighter. “I keep my promises.”

  Neilson looked unsure as to how to answer, so instead he looked around at the six containers that had landed next to the one carrying Katy and Alia. “That looks like a lot of medicine.”

  Katy smiled a little. “Actually, medicine and a food drop are in this container and one other. The other five contain the project we told you about when we met in intraspace.”

  Hands still on his hips, Neilson nodded slowly. “Let’s get inside where we can talk.”

  Without another word, Neilson turned to walk away. His assistant quickly followed.

  Katy looked at Alia, who shook her head slightly.

  Something in the way that Neilson greeted them made Katy nervous. She was, after all, providing the means for these people to become largely independent of the Unity system. She wasn’t exactly expecting a parade, but a little friendliness didn’t seem like much to ask for.

  Without a clear alternative, she stepped down the ramp and onto the sandy red soil of the landing zone. Alia followed her.

  Neilson didn’t wait, so they were obliged to trot after him. Not sure exactly where this was going, Katy turned to Alia and whispered, “For now, I think we should keep those things shut and sealed. I don’t want anyone stealing our stuff. What do you think?” Alia nodded and flipped down her heads-up. In a moment, she gave Katy a thumbs-up.

  The airfield complex wasn’t that large in St. Justina. In the distance, Katy could see that the hardened red earth had been smoothed into something resembling a runway for wheeled aircraft and spacecraft. The circle of fibercrete where her seven containers now sat seemed to be the only landing pad for VTOL craft. Tall metal fencing topped with razor wire surrounded the whole perimeter. Katy could see the places where automated gun emplacements had been mounted when it was a working re-ed camp. She guessed that the weapons had been removed when the Unity abandoned the camp.

  Beyond the fence, long, windowless metal buildings ran in rows. They didn’t look that different from the metal containers used by Clarion.

  Alia elbowed her in the ribs. Pointing to the containers, she said under her breath, “I’d swear those are quads.”

  Katy nodded quietly. Quads were a larger version of the standard container and got their name because they were twice as tall and twice as wide as a standard container.

  Alia continued. “I wonder how many of them would still fly?”

  Katy spoke out of the corner of her mouth. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I guess there’s a little bit of a mechanic in me.” For a while, they walked silently, crossing the huge airfield heading to a small cluster of buildings at one end. Eventually, Alia spoke up again. “Make a great way to get everyone off this rock if it ever became necessary. Don’t you think?”

  “Yes, it would.”

  A few minutes later, the four of them arrived at a huddle of modest buildings that looked like the only permanent structures in St. Justina. It took Katy’s eyes a moment to adjust after she and Alia stepped into the modular fibercrete structure. Following Neilson, they passed through a small lobby area with a receptionist’s desk that looked like it hadn’t been used in several years. The large man settled himself into the desk in the office on the other side of the reception area. The other man sat in a chair next to him.

  Neilson gestured to the chairs in front of the desk.

  When the women had seated themselves, he tented his fingers and began. “Listen, I don’t want to lie to you—I’m not all that keen on your soil project.”

  Katy felt a sick feeling creep into her stomach. This is what she had feared from the beginning. Without someone on the planet buying in on the plan, the whole thing wasn’t going to work. “Then why meet us in intraspace and talk about it?”

  Neilson shrugged. “We need the food, and we need the medicine. I wasn’t going to pass that by.”

  A lump formed in Katy’s throat. “So if we hadn’t offered the food or the medicine, we wouldn’t have been welcomed back?”

  Neilson tipped his head and frowned. He looked uncomfortable but resigned to it. “There’s a bit of truth in that.” Then he smiled broadly, too broadly.

  Something about that smile made her even less comfortable.

  Alia sounded angry. “So what’s your plan, then?”

  “My plan is to buy the food and medicine, and then we get you off our little planet as soon as possible.”

  Alia frowned. “Is that up for negotiation?”

  “Not really.”

  Katy worked hard to focus on her breath and put aside the panic that wanted to control her. She kept her voice even. “This is a mistake.”

  Neilson didn’t raise his voice, but a quick snort told Katy all she needed to know about the man’s opinion of her. “Oh, I think not. What you propose will get us all killed, Dr. Paige.”

  Instinctively, Katy wanted to defend her months of hard work. She wanted to demand that they be respected, but she surprised herself by standing outside that impulse before she acted upon it. Getting mad won’t help you find a way for
ward, she thought. She kept face neutral and her voice calm. “Well, that’s not what I want. Why will giving you a soil reclamator get you killed?”

  Beside her, Alia looked like she wanted to go across the table and strangle the man. Katy guessed it was the guards who kept her in check.

  Neilson shifted forward in his chair. He stuttered a little before he spoke with an even more dismissive tone. “Your plan calls for us to sell the waste products from the soil development process—in particular, the lithium. If there’s as much of it as you say in our soil, then how long will it be before the Mining Division comes and takes it all away from us? Right now the miners need us. Asteroid mining is labor intensive, hard work. With the prices you’re talking about offering us, what’s to keep them from coming and taking it? Certainly not us. We’re Omitted. As far as the Unity is concerned, we don’t exist. They’d just as soon gas us or nuke the place from orbit then mine it after we’re gone.”

  Katy glanced at Alia, who gave her a noncommittal look. Neither of them had any idea what was going on here, but Katy had the suspicion that there was more to Neilson’s sudden disinterest than he was letting on. Inside, one part of Katy raged. Months of planning had gone into this. The whole crew of the Clarion had been involved. The ship had barely kept itself in the deep dark, all because there was going to be a big payoff at the other end, and now this man was threatening to undermine all of that work. Yet somehow, Katy managed to keep herself completely separate from all of that. It was as if she stood on a hillside watching the flood of thoughts rush by below her. She refused to go down and let the flood sweep her away. Instead, she sat still and chose her own path.

  Watching Neilson carefully, Katy smiled and said calmly, “I really don’t think that’s likely, Neilson. The price we’re offering you is the free-market price based on supply and demand on the black market for lithium carbonate. In her great wisdom, the Unity has decided to keep the price between their divisions artificially low. There’s no way the Mining Division could afford to mine this planet at the price it gets from other divisions. Think of it this way, if the Unity could afford to mine it, why did they abandon the camp full of slave labor just waiting to be exploited? So that’s not the real concern. The Unity isn’t coming back here for lithium.” And I think you know that, she added in her head.