by Merry Farmer
“Danny?”
In a flash, his glib expression dropped. The lines around his eyes deepened and his back snapped straight. The windows on his screen began to blink shut like falling dominoes. He held his breath as the tapping of the keyboard chattered like a rainstorm. In a matter of seconds every window on the screen snapped shut and he clicked off the computer entirely, pushing back from the desk with a sharp breath.
“What?” she demanded, heart racing. “What happened?”
He stared at the blank screen, silent, panting. His hands trembled. Then he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, rubbing his face.
“I’m not as smart as I think I am.”
She swallowed hard. “They almost caught you, didn’t they?”
He nodded slowly, opening his eyes and staring up at her.
“Danny,” she growled in frustration, smacking his shoulder, “don’t you ever try anything so stupid again. You do know what they did to Brian Kutrosky, don’t you? He’s locked in a cell next to the engine. The engine. If you end up locked in a cell next to the engine I’ll never forgive you.”
“Believe me,” he answered. “After what I just saw, I think my hacking days are over.”
“Good.” She took a deep breath to steady her nerves.
The smile returned to her face and with it the zing of expectation.
“So? Did you see who the computer matched me up with?”
He raised his eyes to meet hers. She couldn’t put her thumb on the emotion his gaze carried.
“No.” He glanced away.
Beth’s group returned from their exploration in the forest downriver a few hours after Grace’s. They brimmed with stories about the river widening, about the abundance of wildlife in the forest, about enormous rock formations concealing caves, and about a grove of fruit trees that stretched into flatter grassland.
“The fruit isn’t that bad,” Beth reported to Grace and Sean as they met her group in the clearing by the wreck, “although I’m pretty sure it’s not ripe. One way or another, there’s enough to last for months. And the caves are easily large enough for people to live in if we had to. There is evidence that animals of some sort have lived there before or may be living there now, but we could clear them out.”
Sean greeted the report with the first positivity Grace had seen from him since the crash.
Dave’s team returned just over an hour later, as the sun began to finally set. They too reported abundant wildlife.
“The hills are lower in that direction,” he told them as they cooked the meat Kinn had brought the day before along with fish from the stream and a variety of mushrooms and wild vegetables that Danny had deemed safe. Between the brazier and a spit that had been in the treasure chests, they could cook enough food for a feast.
“There are herds of, I don’t know, sheep or something. Hundreds of them. And they let us walk right up to them. Lauren even touched one of them before it came to its senses and bolted.”
“They looked like miniature gray buffaloes,” Lauren agreed with Dave. “I think they could easily be domesticated. Their coats are surprisingly soft. I don’t see why we couldn’t sheer them and make wool.”
It was a concrete goal to work toward. Grace repeated the mantra ‘food, clothing, shelter’ to herself with every additional discovery her people reported. They wouldn’t starve, they wouldn’t die of exposure. The most dangerous thing they had come across so far was each other.
As the sun set and Chronis began its own trip to the horizon, when all of the fire pits were lit and the watch had been decided for the night, Sean went around gathering people and sending them down to the clearing by the wreck. Stacey and her crew had repacked the treasure chests and Grace, Danny, and a few others finished cleaning up the brazier and the spit from their communal dinner.
“Find yourself a seat and get comfortable,” Sean spoke loud enough for his voice to be heard by everyone. “We’ve had a full day and there are some things we need to go over.”
As Grace finished cleaning, she felt Sean watching her.
“Are you really going to let him run this?” Danny asked in a murmur no one else could hear.
Grace met Sean’s eyes and nodded with exhausted resignation. He sent her a reassuring smile in return. “Why not? He keeps telling me he wants to lead. Let him shoulder the responsibility of them all for a while.”
“If you’re sure.” Danny shrugged and pointed out an empty spot where they could sit.
The remains of their dinner had been cleaned up as much as possible, so she followed his direction through the shadows cast by the firelight to sit with her back against a tree. Danny sank to sit by her side as Sean went on.
“I’m sure you all heard about our encounter with the people from the other wrecks, but just in case you haven’t….” He took a breath before going on. “It looks like Brian Kutrosky might be the leader of the people from the other crash.”
He paused for the inevitable murmurs that followed.
“Might be,” Grace whispered. They didn’t know anything for sure.
Danny reached out and rubbed her leg to comfort her.
Sean continued. “Unfortunately, it looks like the soldiers who we met yesterday, Kinn and his men, are still determined to capture Kutrosky and bring him to justice.”
“What do you mean ‘unfortunately’?” Beth asked. “Kutrosky’s a criminal, no matter what happened at his sentencing. I don’t want him running loose.”
Grace winced and squeezed her eyes shut. Danny closed his hand over hers and forced her to let go of the fist she’d made.
“Patience,” he whispered. “Things aren’t going to change overnight.”
“They have to.”
His mouth hitched into a lop-sided grin. “Since when have you been a pessimist?”
Sean replied to Beth. “I agree. Keeping a lid on Kutrosky is a good thing. We need to keep out of whatever Kinn’s men decide to do about it. We need to let them do their jobs. We can’t get involved.”
“Involved in what?” Lauren asked.
Sean shrugged. “In whatever conflict they’ve got going. They were shooting at each other when we arrived.”
Grace shifted uncomfortably, waiting for Sean to tell tales on her and call her out for stopping the fighting.
“Whatever little war they’ve started, it isn’t any of our business,” he went on without mentioning her. “We’re going to let them sort it out amongst themselves.”
“We can’t let them kill each other,” Grace forced out the whisper. Her back ached and she wanted to crawl out of her skin with frustration. “We need every man and woman on this moon alive to reproduce if we’re going to last.”
Danny chuckled. “Now you’re thinking like me.” He slipped his arm around her shoulders and held her against his side. “Stop squirming and see if he has anything constructive to say.”
She couldn’t sit still. Restless energy zipped through her, making her want to wriggle closer to him. It was as if the air itself was urging her to get on with the business of reproducing. She sniffed half a laugh to hide the intensity of her reaction as Sean went on.
“Kinn and Kutrosky have set up borders. They said there would be guards patrolling those borders. Kinn’s territory is everything on the other side of the river. No one is to cross it. There’s a rocky field about three or four hours from here that way. Kutrosky wants everything on the other side of that valley. I told both of them that we want everything from this hill where we’re camped on downriver. They said they’ll respect those boundaries, but I want to set up a guard duty anyhow.” His suggestion was met by more murmuring. “And we need to move our camp.”
“Move?” Beth spoke up again. “Where?”
“Down by those caves you said you saw. By the fruit trees. Far enough away that if they do trespass on our territory we’ll have warning and we’ll be able to defend ourselves.”
“We’re not at war,” Grace groaned quietly, shaking her head. “We ca
n’t be at war.”
“Nothing is decided yet,” Danny reminded her.
She turned her head to look at him. He stared back at her, his eyes nowhere near as convincing as his words. He glanced away, lowering his gaze to the dancing fire in the middle of the clearing.
“Now I think it should be fairly simple to move what we need to move quickly,” Sean continued. “The anti-gravity dolly has a battery life of about twenty hours. We can’t recharge it since ES5 is dead, but we haven’t come close to using it up. So we can move the heavy things first. And we can do it the old fashioned way too if we need to. We can carry our supplies.”
“We should get used to doing things the old fashioned way, now,” Grace sighed.
“We’ll choose a new spot to start our settlement tomorrow and then we’ll set up the tents, see if the caves are habitable. And we need to divvy up jobs and responsibilities as well.” He nodded to the treasure chests. “We have seeds. We should plant them as soon as we can so that we can have a harvest.”
“Um, yeah.” Gil raised his hand and stood up. He shifted, staring at the ground, then squinted up at Sean. “You might want to make planting something of a priority?” He made his urgent statement as if it were a question. “I’ve got this feeling it’s past the prime planting season already and we might not have a lot of time before winter sets in.”
“Winter?” Stacey pushed off from the wall of the wreck where she had been leaning. “This is far from winter.”
“Well now it is.” Gil turned to her as if thirty-six other people weren’t watching. “These are deciduous trees. We’re in a temperate zone. That means there are seasons. Summer, spring, fall, and winter. Only we don’t know how intense they are.” He gestured up to the leafy canopy. “The trees are in full green now. That means it’s not spring. It’s summer. It may be late summer, it may not. It may be too late.”
A chill shot down Grace’s spine.
“All I’m saying,” Gil finished, “is that, regardless of what the others are doing, we need to look ahead.”
“Thank you,” Grace sighed, closing her eyes and leaning her head against the tree. Danny’s arm around her back kept her head from comfortably reaching the trunk. She rolled it to rest on his shoulder instead.
“See, you’re not the only sensible person here,” he whispered against the top of her head, rubbing her shoulder.
“We need to defend ourselves.” Sean countered Gil’s statement.
“Are you sure about that?” Grace whispered to Danny.
His shoulder shook in silent laughter. “Don’t worry, I won’t let him get out of hand.”
For just that moment, the situation didn’t seem as dire as it could have. The warmth of Danny’s body next to hers was making her sleepier than she already was. She closed her eyes as Sean droned on, letting the argument pass over her. She drifted on the idea of what it would be like to sleep with Danny’s warmth and masculine scent beside her all night, his arms around her. There was a future to consider, a future in which the ancient rules of community and family would be vital to success. Danny would be a wonderful father. His family would be so much warmer than—
“What do you think, Grace?”
The question jolted her out of the comfort of her imagination. She snapped to sit upright, blinking rapidly as one set of survival instincts shoved aside and another forced her to focus on the situation.
“What do you mean what do I think?” She searched the faces that looked to her for the one that had asked the question.
They were all asking the question.
“Do you think we should move the camp?” Stacey asked. She leaned against the side of the wreck with feigned casualness, but Grace knew the sharp glint in her eyes well.
She glanced from Stacey to Sean. Sean stood with his feet apart and his arms crossed, jaw clenched and impatient, willing her to agree with him. Her heart thundered against her chest. In spite of Sean’s show of authority, people were waiting for her to make the decision.
Danny slid his hand to the center of her back. “Don’t keep your ideals to yourself,” he whispered so that no one else could hear. “You know what needs to be done. Tell them. I’ll support you.”
She pushed herself to her feet, muscles aching with the stress of the day. She took a deep breath and faced them all across the firelight. There was more of a decision at stake than where they should all live.
“We should move the camp,” she began by agreeing with Sean. His shoulders loosened in relief. “But only if it means we move it to a more advantageous spot, a place with more resources available.”
Around the clearing she received nods. They were listening to her, looking to her. Sean watched her with renewed tension. Kinn’s description of her as the superior officer flashed to her mind. She swallowed and went on.
“Gil is right. We do need to think ahead. We need to think about winter, about storing enough food to survive and,” she raised her voice and met Sean’s eyes, “preparing for the time when all of the survivors can come together as one colony. But we need to think further ahead than just that.”
She looked past Sean, staring at the ground with his jaw set as she contradicted him, to Carrie. Her friend watched her with absolute trust. She owed Carrie a better life than this.
She took a deep breath and charged ahead.
“We need to think about permanence. We need to take actions now that will help us ten years down the road, however long those years might be.” She looked to Gil who watched her and nodded in agreement. “We need to consider the basics, food, clothing, shelter, but we also need to start thinking about population. We need to grow in numbers as well as strength. The Project ordered us not to form any attachments while we were on the Argo. They forbid any sort of intimacy while we were en route. We’re not en route anymore. We need to….”
Her words faltered as she met Sean’s eyes. His stare spoke every thought she knew he had, masculine and instinctive. Possessive. Immediately she glanced past him to Carrie. The strain around Carrie’s eyes and the tightness of her mouth was plain even in the dark. She would have to deal with that mess soon. She wondered how long she could avoid it.
“Well, you get the idea.”
To her relief her speech was met with chuckles and light-hearted comments between the various groups scattered around the clearing.
“So we should move then.” Stacey pressed her point. “You think we should leave this baby behind,” she patted ES5’s siding, causing a metallic bang, “and make babies of our own downriver someplace.”
“Yes. More or less.”
Stacey shrugged. “If that’s what you want to do, then that’s what I’ll do. I’m more than ready for the second part.” A general murmur of agreement went up from the others. “Hey Gil, you got a girlfriend?”
The swell of laughter dissolved the remaining tension from the group. Gil turned bright red and shuffled his way over to Stacey, reflexively running his hands through his hair and glancing warily back at the handful of people cat calling and shouting encouragement.
“That’s settled, then.” Danny stood. “We’ll pack up and start the move tomorrow.”
The meeting dissolved into lighthearted conversations. Grace glanced over her shoulder at Danny.
“Nice work.” He winked.
“Yeah, nice work,” Sean echoed with sarcasm. He strolled over to them, arms still crossed. Carrie jumped up from her spot and rushed across the clearing to join them. “Did you put her up to that?” Sean narrowed his eyes at Danny.
“Sean.” Carrie looked ready to pummel him. “Don’t be such a sore loser.”
Grace was too exhausted to pick another fight. “I said what I believe.”
“Right.” He nodded sharply. “And you completely undermined everything I said in the process, once again.”
“I didn’t—”
“People listened to Grace, Sean, because she has a better track record with making important decisions than you do. She’s prove
n multiple times that she is capable of sound judgment, something you can’t say.” Danny’s sharp assertion brought them all to dead silence.
Sean’s jaw clenched harder. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He took a step toward Danny, using the more than six inch height advantage he had to glower down at him.
Danny remained calm as a stone. “Compassion speaks louder than muscle. Or are you forgetting what happened at the sentencing?”
Sean balled his hand into a fist.
Grace let out a breath and dropped her arms. Family was her future and now she was the mother of a pack of overgrown children.
“Why don’t you all sort it out amongst yourselves,” she muttered and broke away from them.
She marched out of the clearing and straight up the hill to where her bear skin and the mysterious wooden box waited. She slipped her hand into her pocket and felt the key, contemplating opening the box.
No, it would only start another round of questions, another cycle of conflict that she didn’t have the energy for. Sleep was the only thing she wanted to think about now, not bruised male egos, not old mysteries that added nothing to their situation, not the sacrifice she feared she would have to make to bring people together. For those few moments a simple life with Danny had seemed possible. She knew enough now to know that in the morning that dream would be squashed under the mantle of leadership.
Chapter Seven – Aggression
A month later, Grace sat perched on the short cliff above the bend in the river near the wreck of ES5. She’d arrived in early morning, paid her respects at Peter’s gravesite, then walked down to the cliff to take her turn at watch. She sat cross-legged, her fraying skirt spread over her legs, her red hair pulled over her shoulder in a loose braid. The leather-bound survival book lay open in her lap. She chewed her lip as she studied a chapter on how to dig a latrine, wondering if they’d done it right.
Her skin prickled every time she stopped to consider how a book that fit their needs so perfectly had ended up on ES5, how any of the things that had given them a jump on building a settlement had ended up there. The treasure chests had allowed them to move easily in the last month from surviving to creating. It had given them tips for constructing substitutes when, one after one, the dollies and handhelds had worn out their batteries and died. They were light-years better off than they should have been only a few weeks after a crash.
