Saving Grace

by Merry Farmer

  “We’re going to Brian’s camp.” She cleared her embarrassment with business.

  “Kutrosky’s camp? Why?”

  “Top secret negotiations,” Carrie answered with a wide smile.

  Stacey’s dark eyebrows shot to her forehead. “Top secret, eh?”

  There was no point in keeping anything from Stacey. Aside from Carrie and Danny, Stacey was the one person Grace knew she could trust implicitly. “Kinn asked me to talk to Kutrosky about sharing some of the women from his camp.”

  “Sharing the women?” Stacey huffed a laugh. “You’re starting to sound like your geneticist.”

  Behind her Gil grinned for half a second until he realized he was listening to a private conversation. He skittered to roll up their bed while simultaneously staring up at the sky, making whatever mental calculations he was always distracted with.

  “That’s not what I meant. Kinn agrees that we should begin merging our camps, starting with an attempt at gender balance. At the very least it will help with labor distribution and let everyone focus on settlement-building. Kinn knows Brian won’t deal with him.” Grace explained the situation as innocuously as possible.

  “But he thinks Kutrosky will deal with you?”

  Grace nodded, still trying not to look at Gil.

  Stacey planted her hands on her hips. “Can I come?”

  Grace considered. It might be better if they had some sort of back-up. She was more than capable of defending herself, but the more people she had to present a position of strength the better. She glanced to Carrie. Carrie tilted her head noncommittally and shrugged.

  “Sure,” she nodded to Stacey. “Why not?”

  “Excellent.” Stacey grinned and turned to hop back over to Gil. “Let me just check with the old ball and chain.”

  As she caught Gil in the midst of his frantic efforts to clean up, Grace and Carrie exchanged grins.

  “What on earth are their kids going to be like?” Carrie shook her head.

  “Smart and tough and exactly what The Terra Project would have hoped for,” Grace answered with all due seriousness. “In fact, I’d say they’re a perfect genetic match.”

  “Spoken like a connoisseur of Terra Project punch.”

  Stacey finished explaining the situation to Gil, kissed him soundly on the lips, provoking another deep blush from Gil, then bounded back over to them, grabbing her backpack along the way.

  “Great. Let’s get this party started.”

  “Hey Grace, look at this.”

  Carrie had tilted her handheld so that Grace could see the photo of a handsome but stoic man it displayed.

  “Shh. You’re supposed to be paying attention to the lecture,” she had whispered her reply.

  “Forget the lecture. I’m friends with Governor King. They’ll pick me for the Leadership Team whether I pass the test or not. This is far more interesting.”

  She turned to gape at Carrie. “I didn’t know you were friends with the governor.”

  “Yeah, he and my parents go way back. That’s why I’m here.” She waved away the connection, wiggling her handheld. “This is Leif Chernikov.”

  Grace dragged her attention away from the lecturer at the front of the auditorium to take another look at the picture.

  “He’s cute,” she said to satisfy her new friend. She blinked and took another look. “Very cute.”

  “He’s the leader of the breakaways,” Carrie whispered, so quiet she almost couldn’t be heard.

  Grace snatched the handheld from Carrie and clicked it off in spite of her friend’s silent protests, heart pounding. “Do you know what they would do to you if they found you with that? How did you get it?”

  “It’s his personnel record,” Carrie whispered. “From the original voyage’s manifest. Every other trace of him has been wiped out, but they missed this.”

  Grace felt her face splotch red. She checked to be sure no one was watching them. Carrie was on the end of the row and didn’t have to worry about being overheard, but Grace had a round-faced man with a beard sitting next to her, smiling as the lecturer went on. He could have been anybody. He could have been Consistory.

  Carrie went on, intent on her discoveries. “The Terra Project can’t deny the existence of the breakaways forever. They’re there. It happened.”

  “Shh. I’m trying to concentrate.”

  “Why bother?” Carrie slumped in her seat and clicked her handheld back on. “We’re just going there to populate the planet anyhow.”

  “You maybe, but I want to contribute. I want to see the Project succeed.” She tried not to be annoyed. Too many people took the mission for granted, while she had devoted her life to it.

  “Do you really?” Carrie sent her a sly look, sliding closer. “Do you really want to see Terra grow into the next universal power?”

  “I want to see humanity spread its wings and fulfill its destiny. I want a better life than…. Never mind.” She kept her eyes trained on the lecturer, trying desperately to catch his words and those of her friend at the same time.

  “That’s what I want too.” Carrie nodded and flipped through pages on her handheld.

  “I’m glad.”

  She tilted the handheld in Grace’s direction again. It still displayed the handsome face of Leif Chernikov. “He was a soldier.”

  Grace’s eyebrows shot up and the lecture was forgotten. “Really? A real soldier? Not a drone?”

  “Uh huh.” Carrie nodded, biting her lip, eyebrow twitching. “You know what made him do it?”

  Grace struggled not to get caught up in Carrie’s excitement. The smiling man on her other side glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. She shifted uncomfortably. “Do what?”

  “Break away.” Carrie leaned close. “Ditch Base One. Say goodbye to the Man. Can you guess why?”

  The man to her left was definitely listening to them now. Grace swallowed, cold sweat breaking out on her back. If they were caught having this conversation, her chances of joining the Leadership Team would be gone. If the man next to her was Consistory, they would be sent back to Earth as likely as not. They were still close enough to pop her in an emergency ship and send her home to a life that held nothing for her. The Terra Project was her life.

  “Why?” she asked so that Carrie would get it over with and shut up.

  Carrie leaned even closer. “He did it for love.”

  Grace turned her head to her friend, anxiety dissipating with a laugh. “You have to be joking. For love? Romantic love? Is this some kind of fairytale?”

  “I’m serious. He did it for love.”

  Grace fixed her friend with a flat stare. “Only children and the feeble-minded believe in romantic love. No man would let something as archaic as love interfere with progress. Not for centuries.”

  Carrie’s eyes flashed with unusual gravity. “You know they matched the first group of settlers up with a computer program. For maximum personal and genetic compatibility, right? You know why they don’t do that anymore? Because the computer did its job too well. Chernikov fell in love with his wife. He took her and their newborn son and some of their friends and ran off in the middle of the night.”

  Grace’s feminine heart tightened at the story but her logically trained mind rejected the idea. “There’s your answer, then. He didn’t do it for love, he did it to protect his offspring.”

  As soon as she’d whispered the words, she frowned.

  “But why would a man take a newborn out into the wilderness when Base One is the only source of food and medicine and communication with Earth?” she questioned her own conclusion.

  The lecturer ended his lesson. The auditorium rumbled to applause. People rose to their feet, talking and milling until the room descended into a buzz of movement and conversation.

  Carrie stood with everyone else and clicked her handheld off. She grinned at Grace with a mysterious twinkle in her eyes. “Because he knew the truth.”

  Grace stopped dead and stared when they reached
the crest of the hill and looked down into Kutrosky’s camp. Their previous interaction had taken place in the valley they had just climbed out of. She hadn’t imagined what the other crash site would look like. The half-deconstructed wreck of an emergency ship five times larger than theirs—roughly the size of the planetarium on the Argo but narrower—dominated the valley, like a giant twisted metal whale washed up on an unfamiliar shore. It had the same silent, dead feeling as ES5, no functioning technology at all. The ground was churned in a gouge at least ten feet deep across the valley showing the path of the crash.

  Alcoves and caves had been dug into the walls of the gouge. Boxes and bundles from the ship were stored in haphazard stacks and piles inside and around them. A few tiny huts and lean-tos had been constructed on the higher ground from the remains of the wreck and from logs and branches taken from the forest half a mile away. The dirty, ramshackle appearance of the camp sent cold fingers of dread into Grace’s stomach. Even if their ship was dead, it was far from the cramped tin box that ES5 was. Why send people to live in the ground when adequate shelter was right there?

  Dozens of people moved and worked in the thrown-together camp. She noticed a group slaughtering an animal of some sort at the far end of the gouge while others figured out what to do with its hide. A steady stream of mostly women came over the far hill with containers of some sort, storage bins from their ship if she was right, loaded with fruit. They all looked tattered, tired, and filthy. Here and there she made out what she thought were troughs and barrels of water, but the overall picture was of people trying to survive, not build.

  “Don’t say anything,” Grace cautioned her friends, prickling with anxiety. “I don’t like the look of this. Don’t speak unless I let you know it’s safe.”

  “Gotcha, Boss,” Stacey agreed.

  The moment they had appeared on the top of the hill they had been seen. By the time they descended into the valley and reached the edge of the camp beside the gouge, people were swarming toward them. Some had guns. Grace greeted them as if they were all on level footing at one of the social events on the Argo.

  She recognized a few of the men and women who came up to shake her hand and ask how she was, how the others were, if she had seen their friends. Most were merely the faces she had passed in the corridors each day. The vast majority of them were other women in ill-fitting uniform shirts and pants like the clothing that had been stored on every emergency ship. She needed to get them all out of this ramshackle camp and to safety, not just a few.

  “Grace Hargrove.” Kutrosky’s voice carried over the crowd that had come to greet them. They parted for him with a confused mix of deference and wariness. “What brings you all the way out here?” His shirt was clean and his thinning hair brushed to one side.

  “Brian.” She smiled, stepping forward and extending a hand. He took her hand in both of his. His hands were smooth and uncalloused. “Sorry to drop by unannounced and without following protocol like this.”

  He waved off her apology. “Don’t think of it. I owe you my life. You’re welcome here any time.” His voice was still overly loud months after he had been removed from the storeroom beside the engine.

  “Thanks.” She kept her smile as genuine as possible but was glad when he released her hand. “These are my friends, Carrie Gartner and Stacey Velasquez.” She turned to gesture to the others.

  “Pleased to meet you.” Stacey stepped forward and shook Kutrosky’s hand vigorously.

  “Likewise.” Kutrosky nodded.

  He moved to Carrie. Her eyes were tight and her lips pressed in a line as she shook his hand.

  “Any friend of Grace’s is a friend of mine.”

  If Carrie thought Danny was creepy then Grace was dying to know what she would think of Kutrosky. His smile made Danny look like a priest.

  Kutrosky turned back to Grace. “Come and have a drink. Sit down and rest a while. It’s the least I could do for someone who’s done so much for me.”

  “Thanks.”

  Grace followed by Kutrosky’s side, Stacey and Carrie behind them, as they crossed through the disbursing onlookers toward the wreck. Kinn had mentioned that there were over fifty men in Kutrosky’s camp but Grace saw only a handful besides Brian.

  “Are these all the people you have with you?” She chose her question carefully.

  “This? No.” Kutrosky laughed. “The hunters are off that way somewhere.” He gestured in the direction of the distant mountains. “And the gatherers are off scouting for more of the fruit trees we’ve come across. Have you found the trees?” he asked quickly. “The ones with the crisp, appley things?”

  “We’ve found trees like them. And some that have more pulpy fruit, like plums almost. Have you had any luck finding things like mushrooms? Wild grains?”

  He shrugged noncommittally. “We’ve had a few close calls with mushrooms and things we probably shouldn’t have eaten. Stay away from the plant with dark maroon leaves. It’s not lettuce,” he cautioned her, but didn’t elaborate.

  She nodded. “Danny’s been feeding things to the hamsters to see if they’re harmful. I think the red lettuce was one of the first to get crossed off the list of edible plants.”

  Kutrosky’s face had grown progressively darker as she spoke. “Daniel Thorne.”

  “That’s right.” She remained deliberately vague.

  Kutrosky stopped and turned to her. “Let me give you a piece of advice.” He stared into her eyes with almost mad intensity. “Get rid of that man as quickly as possible. Throw him in the river, feed him to the bears, whatever it takes to make sure that he dies. Slowly and painfully if at all possible.”

  Grace’s hands went numb as he spoke. She was sure the crimson in her face gave away her emotions, good and bad. Her voice shook as she said, “We need every man and woman alive, Brian.”

  “Not every man.” He narrowed his eyes and argued with her. “That geneticist is dangerous. If you knew half the monstrosities he has his bloody hands in you’d have nightmares for months. You don’t want him anywhere near normal people.”

  She swallowed hard, shooting a sidelong glance to Carrie and Stacey. They both had the good grace to look like they hadn’t heard Kutrosky’s dig as they scanned the camp. Stacey inched to the edge of the gouge as if studying its depth.

  “Well, I’m not here to talk about Danny,” Grace said. “Maybe we can have a lively debate about genetic theory and medical ethics when the winter nights get long and cold and no one has anything better to do.”

  He laughed, patting her arm. “Winter nights. Good one.”

  Grace’s heart continued to pound as he escorted them away from the gouge and into the heart of the camp and its make-shift hovels. It was marginally cleaner, though the shelters didn’t look like they’d last through a strong wind, let alone winter. If Kutrosky saw anything alarming in their apparently complete lack of development or preparedness he didn’t say.

  “I’ve divided the survivors from our ship into squads of two men and three or four women,” he explained. “Each squad is responsible for finding their own food, building their own shelters, whatever. The remainder of the women are my direct responsibility.”

  “But don’t you think your whole camp should be working together?” Grace asked. “Couldn’t you accomplish more, build better shelters and store more food, if you had everyone working as one? It will prepare them for the day when all of the survivors come together, at least.”

  “I don’t see how that would make any difference.” He brushed her off.

  She was too alarmed by what she saw to let it rest. “Wouldn’t it be safer for your people if you continued to live inside your ship instead of out in the open and vulnerable? Or better still, if you moved closer to us? You wouldn’t have to integrate with our camp exactly, but if we were closer we could—”

  “No. We’re fine here.” He gave her a quick, cold smile. “And the ship’s unstable. No one is permitted inside anymore.”

  “But I’m sure
you could stabilize it, maybe even get it to work again? We have a man, Dave, who is trying to revive ES5. Maybe he could help.”

  He ignored her. Grace exhaled and glanced to Carrie and Stacey. Carrie frowned at the ground and Stacey shrugged.

  They came to a large hut constructed from metal siding and pieces of the ship. A banner of sorts flew from a pole mounted on top of the structure. It looked to Grace like a sunrise painted on half of one of the emergency ship’s blankets. They were met at the door by a short woman with long black hair and glasses. She sat on one of the seats from the ship with a pile of loose gray wool to one side, spinning it into yarn with what could have passed as a drop spindle. Grace stopped and watched in fascination.

  “Where did you get that?” She gestured to the wooden spindle.

  “Rebecca, one of the women from our ship, used to knit as a hobby,” the woman answered. “She carved a bunch of these. She actually thinks this is fun.” Her dark brows sank in glum misery as she returned her attention to the spindle. “Personally, I think that shoes are fun. Oh, I know, why don’t we get someone to figure out how to make those out of leaves and twigs and hamster hides.” She sneered at Kutrosky. Grace wasn’t sure if she was making a joke or venting.

  “Can it, Mina.” Brian returned acid for acid and pushed aside the blanket that stood in for a door, gesturing for Grace and the others to come inside.

  “Sorry about Mina,” he apologized once they were inside. “She’s not the wilderness type, if you know what I mean. I keep telling her she’s wasting her time with that fluff.”

  “Spinning is hardly a waste of time. In fact we should all—”

  “God only knows what she expected to find on Terra,” Kutrosky cut her off. “She was only on the mission because of her brother. They were the only family each other had, so when he was selected they let her come even though she has no redeeming merits whatsoever.” His voice was still loud and they were not out of Mina’s earshot.