Traveler_Losing Legong

by Tim Dennis

  Myles felt the oxygen sucked from the room by dozens of gasping onlookers.

  "That ingrate!" cried Pig. "After we welcomed him into our world!"

  Uh, that didn't happen. We kept him hidden from the public, then when we finally let him onto the planet we got scared, locked him up and stole his ship.

  "Right. I forgot that part."

  The bar's clientele must have been processing the same thoughts, for not a single person challenged Traveler's proclamation. In fact, if one could claim to feel the thoughts of others, the atmosphere within the room developed a sense empathy, even shame.

  "I'm still going." Myles said.

  "What?" seemed to be the only word Bento knew.

  "I'm going." Said Myles. "You said each one of us would be welcomed, as individuals."

  "Yes Myles, and I meant that. I see no reason to deny you a visit to Earth."

  "Was that a dig at you?" Pig asked.

  Traveler knew Myles had already been to Earth, in his ship. Did he know of Norte, Peto, and the museum docent? Was this a trick to get him back to Earth where he could be made to answer for Norte and Peto's actions?

  "All right then, it's settled." Myles folded his hands across his chest and sat back in his chair, a forced display of triumph. In actuality he felt defeated.

  Bento spoke softly. "Are you sure this is the right thing to do Myles? I mean, look around you. Something's happening here. What is it ain't exactly clear, but this visit, the Eden thing, Mallick..."

  "I'm an Advocate," said Myles, "a representative of the people of Legong. It's my job to go to Earth." Myles didn't even convince himself.

  "That's exactly why you should stay. This is a time for leadership, your people need you here." Bento's argument was even less convincing. She took up her glass and crunched an ice cube between her teeth. Neither looked at the other. Traveler looked at both, returning to his inscrutable soft smile. "Why do you do that?" Bento snapped. "You're always watching, staring at people. It's getting damned annoying!" The patrons turned back to their drinks. They'd meant to eavesdrop on matters of great import concerning alien races, not the private squables of intimates. Without saying goodbye, without looking back, Bento grabbed her jacket, got up from the table and left the bar. Her footfalls almost echoed, hesitant while still resolute, silenced only by the door closing behind her. Myles sat quietly for a long time. Traveler watched him for a while then shifted his focus around the room. The energy at the table remained awkward enough that no one in the bar bothered them. Instead, the room slowly emptied out until Traveler and Myles were the only remaining patrons.

  "Myles. It is time."

  "Hmm? Yes. Of course. Look, if we're going to do this I need to stop by my house, pick up a few things."

  "Certainly Myles. It would please me too to see your family once more before we go."

  "We're not going to the farm. My house. On Caldera Proper." Then adding: "It's where I live." It was a completely meaningless statement and Myles didn't understand why he said it. He turned inward and tried to pay the bill using an implant he no longer possessed. With a mixture of frustration and relief he silently rose and led Traveler out into the night.

  Bento stood across the street, watching from a dark doorway. Not all the bar patrons had been the kind-and-welcoming sort and she knew Myles would never notice if they were followed. It was almost two in the morning and the only Legongs out and about in a settlement like Lumber Glenn would be up to no good, so she followed at a discrete distance. They were speaking, too far away to hear.

  "Look, um, I'm sorry." Myles said to Traveler. "I just need to say that. I saw it, I watched it from the pilothouse. There was nothing I could do to stop it."

  "It's all right Myles, Nafasi was doing a job he wished to be doing." said Traveler.

  "No, it's not all right." Myles said. "It's murder, and here on Legong that's frowned upon."

  "But as you said yourself, it was Peto and Norte who are responsible, and they are now dead." Traveler stopped and looked at Myles. "Isn't that correct?"

  "Yes." Myles answered. "Yeah. Peto didn't mean to kill him, I think he was frightened, and well, he's from the polar regions, he's had a rough childhood, and Norte, well, Norte was so focused on the needs of the Colony that I think she figured the deed was done and there was nothing to gain by..."

  "Now you feel they're not responsible for their actions?" Traveler asked.

  "No." Myles felt on the defensive. "Look, you can't judge an entire world by the actions of two misguided kids."

  "Would a dozen be a better sampling?"

  "Now you're being sarcastic."

  Traveler is never sarcastic. Traveler is never anything.

  When the two stopped to bicker Bento slipped back into a shadow, and although she could now hear, she couldn't shift her mind away from the fact that he was leaving, really leaving, and that soon she'd be on Eden, and they'd be about as far apart as two Legongs could get.

  "I am not judging your people Myles, not by the actions of Peto and Norte, not by your Council, and not by yourself. My world welcomed Norte and Peto, and it will welcome you. That does not mean we will be friends, and it does not mean we are destined for a shared future."

  Bento watched, the two continued down the road. She followed as far as the compound beside City Center, waiting outside until she saw Traveler's ship lift into the sky. Looking around at the empty, dark streets radiating away from the tall building Bento connected her implant to the Eden Project grid and used her new authority to summon a Skimmer-Cab.

  35

  Krykowfert stepped out of his private toilet, tightening his belt and smoothing his shirt. Feric looked up, closing two of the f'windows, leaving one open for Asha to play with. It was a globe of Eden, clouds removed from the atmosphere to show every detail of the surface. Feric left them, and Asha immediately opened a new f'window, long and thin, showing figures from Legong history.

  "Will they add you to this list Grampa?" She asked.

  "I hope not soon!" Krykowfert quipped. "Those people are all dead!" Asha frowned at him in mock-disapproval of his dark humor. Krykowfert gave in to the pout and answered her seriously. "No, Asha, those are all religious figures, I don't fit into that group."

  "But you discovered Eden." She said.

  "I found this Eden, yes, with the help of scientists and engineers." As he talked, Krykowfert expanded the images to display both the Eden and Legong star systems. "What's confusing here is that the name Eden has been used for a very long time to refer to a mythical garden. A beautiful, friendly place where we all once belonged. That's why they used the name for the planet. It is a beautiful place, where we belong. But our Eden is a real, physical world, like Legong. The other is an idea, like perfection, or happiness."

  Krykowfert knew Asha understood. He also knew Eden held an additional connection to heaven, which was where her parents had gone when she was little.

  "Now, shall we go pack for your trip to the Tugot farm?"

  Asha pointed into the outer office. A woman with two small bags stood talking to Feric. "I already did." Asha said.

  "Only two bags? And where's Teddy?" Krykowfert asked.

  "Stuffed animals are for kids."

  "Oh? When did you grow up? I suppose you've joined Shield Guard already?"

  Councilor Six joined Feric and the Nanny in the outer office. Asha ran to her and Six lifted her off the floor in a big hug. Krykowfert busied himself at his desk. Six put Asha down and stood in the doorway. "Two bags?" Six asked. "You told me she was just going for a night."

  "I said a fortnight." Krykowfert remained seated. Looking past Six, he smiled at Asha, her own smile now gone as she looked back and forth between the two most important people in her life. Six followed Krykowfert's gaze, smiled also, stepped into the little office and spoke quietly.

  "I would not have agreed to two weeks. It's not safe on the surface."

  Krykowfert slid his chair back, out of the direct view of the outer office. "
She'll be with other children, out of doors in the sunshine. She needs this."

  "What of Mallick, and the flooding?"

  "Neither will be seen in Caldera anytime soon. She's safer there than on Central Command."

  "Who are you to assess risk?" Six grunted out. "I've heard this before from you, and lost a son because of it."

  Krykowfert stood and went to the door. "Nana and I have to talk for a minute, she'll meet you in the hangar, you go on ahead." Asha looked at her grandparents sternly, took her Nanny by the hand and left. Krykowfert watched them, then shut his office door and spoke to Six. "He was my son too, Preta. And he believed in the Eden Project."

  "He'd have gone anywhere, done anything, for you."

  "Aren't you asking other people's sons to take that same risk with your Earth Rip?"

  "No more so than your Eden Rip."

  "Yes. Much more so. I've modified my practices based on the Earthman's warnings. You're-"

  "You listen more to that Earthman that to your own Council. They're just trying to slow us down, keep us in the dark ages. They're trying to prevent us from following our own self-interest, like they did during the diasporas."

  "This is ancient history for God's sake, let it go!"

  "Like you've so easily let go of our son? Like you're letting Asha go down to Legong? Like you let the Earthman escape?"

  "I didn't let him escape, he went home. You have no idea, you can't -" He paused. "Would you have stopped our son? He was an adult, living his own life and making his own choices, like Asha will soon be doing."

  "She's six!"

  "And we are eighty." Krykowfert's voice rose. "What she doesn't learn now, while we're here to help her, she will suffer alone, without tools, without support."

  The blood left Six's tightly pursed lips and her eyes welled with tears. She stared Krykowfert in the face, a mix of anger, frustration and deep sadness. Krykowfert blinked rapidly and drew a deep breath. He tentatively placed a hand on her shoulder. Preta pulled away, rubbed her face and looked up through the tr'indos at the silent tangle of Launch Rails.

  Krykowfert stepped over to his private toilet and pushed open the door. Six slipped inside. As she doused her face in cold water Krykowfert dragged his chair over to the tr'indos, sat down and held his cold cup of tea. When Preta came out she was Councilor Six again, tall, hard and in control. A burst of fire from a Gun Emplacement on the far side of the torus shattered an approaching meteor. A rain of dust and small rocks silently rattled its way through the Launch Rails.

  "This is your rain now." Krykowfert said.

  "Let it come." Six walked out of the office.

  36

  Snotty Rocks was among the earliest surface settlements on Legong. A Badlands, its convoluted landscape of tall, steep-sloped buttes and spires protected the floor of the arid drainage basin from the hail of meteors. A hail reduced, but not entirely eliminated, in the early days of Shield Guard. To take full advantage of the natural protection offered in the interstices, Snotty Rocks had no City Center tower, just low, widely distributed structures, undifferentiated in design, interchangeable in function. At its height Snotty Rocks was home to ten thousand pioneers, and served as a relatively safe base for exploration and expansion. After Shield Guard tamed the skies the settlement remained relevant as a manufacturing center for Cabs, but that was more than a hundred years ago. Now it held less than a thousand semi-permanent residents; geologists, historians and hard-core nature buffs; and a Council Guard Survival-Training Center.

  Cokely sat on a bench across from the Training Center, using his manual link to communicate with agents hiding in the shadows between pinnacles and buildings.

  "Clear?" He asked. A string of 'all clears' came back to him. The doors of the Training Center opened and a dozen idle Council Guard Instructors headed out for lunch. "Go!"

  As Cokely laid back against his bench a single yellow-shirted woman stepped up to the group and engaged them in conversation. Now stopped in the middle of the street, two more individuals walked up behind, putting themselves between the instructors and the building. Everyone paused for a moment, looking around and checking manual links. The two at the rear of the group slipped off their jackets to reveal their own yellow shirts and two dozen more yellow-shirts streamed out from hidden alleys and doorways, half surrounding the instructors and the other half forming a perimeter a few meters away.

  "What's going on?" Asked a lecturer on native flora and fauna.

  "You're going, away!" was the clumsy retort of a yellow-shirt.

  "What are you talking about?" Asked a teacher of geology.

  "We're representatives of the Legong Independence Movement." Said another yellow-shirt, "and we're taking control of this settlement. You must leave immediately."

  The instructors looked around, unbelieving. "You know this is all being transmitted by implant? It's not like you can hide you know."

  At the crack and pop of shattering rock they all turn their heads. Two straight paths, wide enough for an ordinary Skimmer, had long ago been cut through the badlands to connect the settlement to the outside world. A forty-five meter high spire of stone crumbled, filling in the broader of the two. All eyes turned to the other.

  "Get out while you can." Came the menace of a Yellow-shirt.

  Three Combat Instructors made themselves known by shoving two yellow-shirts, and five yellow-shirts shoved back. The sound of the shattering hoodoo had drawn a crowd and now the yellow shirts surrounding the instructors were surrounded themselves. At the same moment a small, unexpected group of Council Guard students ran out of the Training Center, setting up three Dis-Makers on tripods. Ten-centimeter disks on the faces of thirty-centimeter boxes hummed and glowed. Cokely sat up.

  "What the hell are you doing with those?" One of the instructors broke out of the cordon and went to the students, turning off the Dis-Makers with his implant. Another dozen yellow-shirts appeared out of nowhere and kicked a Dis-Maker to the ground, starting a melee. Cokely used his bench to climb on the top of the low building behind him as the fighting spread, using his manual link to pass intel to his agents on the ground. Students, instructors, bystanders and yellow-shirts threw punches and grabbed at shirttails, wrestling in a disorganized tangle of amateur pugilism. Cokely held the manual link to his temple and thought deeply about strategy and discipline. The yellow-shirts gradually gathered back together, surrounding and separating the Shield Guard instructors and students into three groups, using their bodies as a barrier, forcing them up against the building walls. Cokely watched the sky. Nothing.

  The surrounding group of bystanders swelled, continuing their fight with each other now that the yellow-shirts and Guards had achieved a sort of stasis. Four Skimmer-Cabs trotted into the clearing, attempting to pick their way through the yellow-shirts to the imprisoned Guards.

  "Break" shouted Cokely into his manual link, and the yellow-shirts encircling the Guards split, running away from both the Guards and the crowds. The Skimmer-Cabs fell on their bellies and the instructors and most of the small group of students climbed in, a few instead tearing off their uniform jackets and running the opposite direction. As the Skimmer-Cabs shot off down the one route remaining to them, three Cabs crawled out into the crowd, a brace of yellow-shirts leapt in each one, and ran after the faster Skimmers. Moments later came another loud cracking as four more hoodoos were dropped across the paths. The crowd of locals stopped their struggles with each other and looked up at Cokely on the rooftop. His manual link was tight against his temple and his words echoed his thoughts.

  "This settlement is now under the control of the Provisional Legong Government. You are no longer subject to the decrees of the Council on Central Command. You are free." The crowd's reaction was more of confusion than challenge. Mallick and his campaign to separate Legong from the orbiting government was well known by now, but until today there had been no evidence of real organization, no agenda, no demands. Cokely was overwhelmed by questions from the crowd below. H
e jerked his manual link away from his temple and shouted at the crowd. "We're preparing statements that will answer all your questions. It will all be available by implant, but until then you've got to have patience. For the next few days we can't have anyone leaving or entering the settlement-"

  His manual link idle at his side, the crowd turned to shouts and Cokely could no longer be heard. The citizens turned on themselves, and the first role played by Cokely's new revolutionary army was that of a police force, wading into the crowd and separating the more intense debaters from each other.

  "Please," yelled Cokely, "there's no need to fight, everyone's interests will be protected, we just need a couple days!"

  In a chair on a raised platform in the office of a nut-packaging plant Mallick sat and grumbled.

  "Are you displeased, Commander?" A team of sycophants had been assigned to Mallick.

  "I thought I was 'Father Mallick'?"

  A middle-aged manager-type stepped over and replaced the sycophant. "You will always be Father Mallick to us, Commander."

  The two men locked eyes. Mallick sighed and looked away.

  The Council had christened the settlement 'Orchard' but the equally imaginative locals called it 'Dirt Fruit.' Because they grew the trees in dirt, instead of the hydroponic troughs on the farm ships. One of Legong's newest settlements, it wasn't yet producing at full levels and therefore had not been integrated into the supply chain, so it had been easy for the Council Guard to absorb the entire population, those too old or two young being relocated to other settlements. But even without people to command the harvesters the fruit had ripened and now lay in the orchards surrounding the City Center, sweetly rotting.