by Merry Farmer
“Less than ten percent,” Danny argued. “What’s the average divorce rate on Earth these days?”
“And I suppose freedom means nothing at all?”
“Unlike colonists and pioneers of earlier ages, Beth, we are not on this mission to Terra to seek freedom.”
“Then, Dr. Thorne, what are we on this mission for?”
“We’re on this mission to be part of something bigger than ourselves,” Grace interrupted to keep the argument from blowing up.
“Thank you, Grace.” Danny smiled at her.
“We’re on this mission for the hell of it,” Carrie mumbled, tapping her handheld to scroll down.
Sean chuckled. Carrie looked across the table to him and flushed.
She covered her reaction by saying, “There’s hardly anything in here about the Consistory. Or the breakaways.” She put her handheld down and picked up her fork.
“Of course there’s not going to be anything about them.” Sean shook his head. “You do know that The Terra Project officially denies the breakaways exist.”
“You mean the Consistory denies that the breakaways exist,” Beth said.
“The Consistory is a myth,” Danny said.
“Here we go again.” Beth threw up her hands, salad fork in one of them.
“Why bother denying?” Carrie sighed. “Everyone’s heard the rumors. A group of settlers discovered the Big Bad Wolf was running the show and took off in the middle of the night, probably to set up their own colony somewhere else on the planet.”
“Why would anyone want to abandon an established, secure settlement?” Gil rejoined the conversation.
“Freedom.” Beth stressed the word again.
“We’re not here for freedom,” Danny repeated his argument.
“Oh no? Let’s hear what you think of freedom when you find someone you want to shack up with on Terra only to find out that, oop, no, the computer says you’re not a diverse enough genetic match and you can’t have her.”
Danny bristled. He took his time before saying, “I’m a scientist on the Project, not a settler. There is no Terra for me.”
“They don’t use the computer to match people anymore,” Carrie said through a mouthful of pasta. “So I don’t see how it matters one way or another.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Sean said.
Everyone at the table, regardless of their side in the debate, paused and stared at him.
Sean shrugged and wiped his mouth with his napkin. He leaned closer and the entire group, save Danny, leaned in to listen to him. “From what I’ve heard the Project has pre-matched everyone on the Argo, even the government soldiers.”
“But the soldiers aren’t here as colonists any more than the scientists.” Beth shook her head. “They’re here to track the breakaways and then they’re going home.”
Sean winced and hummed. “Not exactly true.”
“Have they matched us all up already?” Grace asked.
Sean met and held her eyes. A swirl of butterflies pooled in Grace’s stomach, and not the good kind.
“Well, there is a contingency plan,” Sean admitted. “In case nature doesn’t take its course.”
“What?” Carrie paused with her fork in the air. She shook her head and continued chewing. “Come on. There’s no way you would know that.”
Sean stiffened. “I’m slated to be Division Leader.”
“That doesn’t mean anything, does it?” Beth said.
“Danny, is it true?” Grace asked.
There was a long pause.
“He’s bluffing,” Danny answered.
Sean met his eyes and arched one eyebrow. “Am I?”
Grace reached the sandy riverbank and rolled up the hem of her skirt, tying it around her thighs. Kinn’s warning from the day before had her scanning the area for snakes before wading into the river. She moved through the cold current until the water reached her knees. What she really wanted to do was to take off her dress and go for a swim. Swimming was a thing of distant memory, a thing of lazy childhood summers before responsibility set in.
She sloshed her way toward the jut of rocks that formed a cliff downstream of the bend, river rocks smooth under her bare feet. They had yet to explore downriver from their crash. The river seemed to grow wider and slower in that direction. If there were more bends and bays downstream and more resources in the forest, then maybe they could find a spot for a settlement large enough for everyone who had crashed. That is, if the camp Kinn had already established wasn’t suitable. The sooner he saw sense and began thinking in terms of a permanent settlement for all, the better.
Permanent settlement. The words rang with promise in her thoughts. Home, stability, life moving on, flourishing in a new wilderness. She craved it like the fresh air and clean water.
With a deep breath, Grace made her way along the riverbed, finding her footing on the larger, slippery rocks further away from the bank. Cold water and fish slipped around her calves. Yes, with a little luck and some careful strategizing she could bring all of the survivors together today and search along the river for the perfect spot to start their new, peaceful civilization. There could even be more emergency ships deeper in the woods or downstream, more survivors. With nothing else but the Ovid System and Chronis and its moons anywhere near the point of the Argo’s explosion, surely others had landed here.
A rustle of movement from the sandy bank snapped her from her thoughts. An enormous cat, as big as a tiger but black and brown, pulled its head up from the water to stare at her. Its eyes were a deep emerald green. It let out a low growl.
Grace gasped and lost her footing, falling into the river with a splash. She went under for a moment, bumping against the bottom before thrashing her way back to the surface. She sucked in a deep breath and pushed wet hair out of her face. The huge cat had jumped away from the water’s edge and stood, tense and poised to either run or fight.
“Hello, kitty.” Grace greeted it in a shaky voice.
Kinn’s statement about the bears—that they didn’t know what humans were but they were learning fast—rang in her mind. She twisted to kneel on the rocks of the riverbed, keeping her shoulders below the water, non-threatening. She searched the area, both sides of the river, looking for help of any sort. It was just her and the cat.
“Did you come down here to fish or to get a drink?” she asked, keeping her voice light.
The cat paced to the side, its eyes trained on her, uncertain what to make of her. It stepped closer to the water then skittered away when she stood. Grace stood slowly, heart beating wildly, water dripping around her. The cat’s ears flicked back and it bobbed its head, nostrils flaring as if deciding whether she was its next meal. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to come down to the river alone and unarmed after all.
“Good kitty.” She reached her arms out as she stepped sideways through the water. “Let’s make a deal. I won’t eat you if you don’t eat me, okay?”
The cat grumbled low in its throat, mouth twitching back to reveal long, sharp teeth. Grace swallowed, heart pounding against her ribs. Leave it to her to be eaten for breakfast her first morning on the moon. She would have to walk past the cat to get back to their camp.
The cat’s ears twitched again and it moved with her on the bank. Its nostrils flared again as though it was learning her scent. Grace stopped walking, pushing wet hair out of her face.
“You just stay there, kitty, and I’m going to keep going. I’m not going to hurt you, so you’re not going to hurt me. We’ve got a truce, right?”
She nodded at the huge creature as if it agreed with her. To her surprise it plopped on its haunches and stretched its mouth into a huge yawn. Grace blinked, her shoulders dropping. It reminded her of barn cats back home. Like they would, it finished its yawn and sat on the sandy bank with a puff.
Grace gasped in relief. “Good kitten.” She moved a little faster, hoping to put the cliff between her and the wild animal. “Good kitten.”
The cat seemed to lose interest in her. It began licking one of its front paws with a huge pink tongue. Grace stopped and turned to watch it.
“You remind me of another cat I once knew.” She switched her whole approach, stepping carefully through the shallow water toward the cat. “His name was Scruffy. We used to take naps together. He was just a little smaller though.”
The cat’s ears flickered and it watched her come nearer with disinterest. Grace’s pulse pounded with excitement. It was going to let her get close. It might even let her touch it. From there who knew what could happen.
“Good kitty.”
When she got within ten feet, the cat leapt up and stared her down. Grace yelped and scrambled back through ankle-deep water. She splashed away until she had rounded the small cliff.
As soon as she pushed out of the water onto the bank her fear turned to giddiness. She had tried to touch a wild cat as big as a tiger. It could have snapped her neck with one bite. Danny would flay her alive.
She picked up speed and ran. The cat didn’t try to follow her.
Grace tore up the slope along the path of destruction left by ES5, stopping once she was sure the cat wouldn’t chase her, to catch her breath. She was dripping wet, her dress plastered to her body, and her hands and knees shook, but in spite of herself she burst into laughter.
“What the hell happened to you?” Sean’s angry voice preceded him through the forest.
Grace jerked to look up at him with as much of a jolt as the cat had given her. She blushed scarlet, crossed her arms over her chest, and wobbled up the slope to meet Sean.
“I had an adventure in early morning swimming.”
Judging by the fury pinching Sean’s face he didn’t see the humor in her boldness.
“Dammit, Grace, you know better than to wander off alone.”
As he reached her his gaze dropped from her face to the curves that her wet clothes accentuated instead of hid. He stared. Something primal and far more predatory than the cat flashed through his expression. She may still be eaten for breakfast after all.
Grace swallowed and hugged herself tighter. “Are you okay?”
Sean blinked in confusion and snapped his head away, clearing his throat. “Yeah.”
She gathered handfuls of wet dress and began to wring herself out. “Do me a favor. Be a gentleman and ignore this.”
“Grace….”
“Sean?”
He shifted in discomfort, still not looking at her. His jaw twitched as he made up his mind about something. He unbuttoned his shirt to hand to her. “Here.”
She finished squeezing water from her skirt before taking the offering with a mortified, “Thank you.” She did him the favor of not staring at his broad chest, hidden by nothing but his tight undershirt.
He cleared his throat hard, looking past her and not at her. “What has you as pale as a ghost?”
“A cat.” She grinned as they started up the hill.
“Not a cat person?”
“Oh, I love cats. I had two back—”
“Grace!” Stacey’s sudden shout stopped her explanation. Stacey bounded down the hill, eyes wide. “Grace. You need to come. Now!”
“What?” Grace’s heart shot to her throat. Stacey had never been this alarmed. Grace forgot about her appearance and stood taller. “What’s happened?”
“The treasure chests.” Stacey rushed her up the hill.
“The what?” Sean tried to keep up.
“The treasure chests,” Stacey repeated. “They’re open.”
“Open? I thought you said they were locked.”
Everything else was forgotten as they ran the last few yards into the camp. A dozen people had gathered where the three mysterious metal crates had been left the day before. The lids had definitely been locked tight then, just as they were most certainly wide open now.
As Grace neared the crates, Dave reached into the center one and pulled out an axe. The sight of the tool sent Grace’s heart ricocheting around her ribcage. Lois, her leg still in its make-shift sling, had taken what looked like a bundle of folded canvas out of another crate. Some of the others held up small sacks, knives, more canvas, and bundles of blue tarps.
“Please put everything back,” Grace ordered through the prickling sensation shooting down her back.
The three metal crates stood in a line, their lids lying open. Each one was packed full. Dave and the others returned the items they had been inspecting to the crates they had come from. The axe Dave had been holding was one of at least a dozen arranged in a tight row on top of a bed of folded canvas squares in the center crate. The crate to the left held snug rows of sealed cloth sacks. She picked one up to inspect it.
“What is it?”
“I think it’s a bag of seeds,” Stacey explained in a hush.
“Seeds.” Grace turned the bag in her hands. The word ‘Cotton’ had been hand-written in the top corner. She placed it back in its crate, turning over some of the other bags that had been stacked alongside it. ‘Oats, Wheat, Flax,’ along with dozens of other staple grains and vegetables. Her hands shook.
“Grace, look at this.”
Stacey had moved to the third crate. The blue plastic tarp covering the top had been pushed back to reveal more canvas, stacks of knives, and what looked like shovel-heads and farming implements. Stacey reached into the crate and pulled out a book that was as big as a dictionary and bound in tan leather. She held it out to Grace.
Grace crossed through the curious people that were still filtering down the hillside from their campfires. Danny and Carrie were among them. Grace met Danny’s serious eyes for half a second as she took the book from Stacey. She turned it over and ran her hand along its spine.
“Is this a real book?” she muttered in awe. Her stomach clenched as she read the title. “Wilderness Survival Guide.”
The spine creaked when she opened it, the new book smell sending a thrill of nostalgia and dread down her spine. Real books were something out of faded memory.
She thumbed through to the table of contents. Food, Clothing, Shelter. Each section of the book reflected the basic necessities of life. She flipped through the pages. The printing was tiny alongside diagrams and charts. Some of the pages stuck together. The real book had never been opened.
“What is it?” Danny asked as he reached her side, Carrie inches behind him. He placed a hand on the small of her back and peered over her shoulder to see what she read.
“It’s a survival book.” She met his eyes, letting him see her fear, then handed him the tome. He took it and paged through while Grace bent over the crate it had come from.
There were more blue tarps separating the knives and shovels from two giant coils of rope and a smaller coil of wire. In the center of the crate were smaller boxes, some metal, some plastic. More adrenaline pounded through Grace’s system now than when she was face to face with the cat. Wild cats she could understand. This was unfathomable.
“We need to inventory it.” She straightened and turned to Stacey. “We need to know exactly what’s here.” She turned to the rest of her people. “Does anyone want to volunteer to help Stacey catalog the items in these crates?”
“I’ll help,” Jonah offered, eyes hollow.
“Good.” She brushed her fingers through her wet hair, trying to think. She couldn’t worry about how all of these things just happened to be here until she knew what everything was. “I need someone else to take a look at ES5’s inventory to see if there’s anything else we missed. Alvin? Do you feel up to it?”
Alvin stepped forward from the group around the crates. He looked worse for wear with his ripped and stained pants, but at least there was color in his face. “Sure thing, Grace.”
“Thank you.”
All of her people now stood around, staring at the curious treasure chests and waiting for something to happen.
“Everyone needs to find some breakfast.” Sean stepped up beside Grace and took on a tone as commanding as hers had b
een. “Clean up and meet back here in an hour or whatever passes for an hour here. Then we’ll talk about what we should do next, how best to use our time.”
There was a faint pause. A few people glanced to Grace and Danny. Grace nodded, and they began to disburse, returning to their fire pits and the few belongings that they had taken from the wreck.
“Go put some dry clothes on,” Sean ordered her with an irritated scowl, not quite looking at her, before marching off himself.
Carrie huffed an audible breath of disapproval and shook her head. Danny watched Sean retreat with narrowed eyes. Grace didn’t care. The cold of standing in the forest in early morning soaking wet was catching up to her. She sighed and hugged Sean’s shirt tighter over her arms.
“You couldn’t wait to go off and do something the rest of us don’t know about, huh?” Carrie crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at Grace before she could say anything.
“It was supposed to be a nice morning swim.” She blushed.
“Where’s your other dress?” Danny couldn’t control his lop-sided grin or his frank look of appreciation for the wet skirt hanging around her legs. He closed the book and handed it to Stacey.
Grace shrugged. “I don’t know. My rucksack is still in ES5 somewhere. I never went back in for my things.”
“I think I saw it in the locker where my pack was,” Carrie told her.
“Well I’m not going in there to get it.” Grace took a breath. “I’m through with giant metal boxes and cramped spaces. I’ll find a nice, warm patch of sun and dry out.”
“I’ll get your pack.” Danny arched an eyebrow and started for ES5’s door. “Take those wet clothes off and wrap up in the bear skin in the meantime,” he ordered over his shoulder.
She turned her attention back to the crates instead. Stacey was unloading the tightly-wrapped squares of canvas from the center crate. Each one was two-feet square and thick.
“I think they’re tents,” she confided.
Grace nodded and moved away. It was too much to think about. She needed to focus her energies on organization, not to mention reaching the others. She started up the hill with Carrie by her side.
