Project Columbus: Omnibus

by J. C. Rainier

  “Yes,” she cried out. “Of course, yes!”

  She sat upright as she straddled him. The left side of her face was lit again by the pale glow of Persephone, and he could see her wide smile as a single tear rolled down her cheek. Alexis raised the necklace over her flowing locks, settling it on her neck. The single ring glinted and faded as it twisted and swung in and out of the shadows. Alexis looked down for a moment, biting her lip as she admired the adornment.

  He rose up to meet her in a kiss under the double full moons. The sounds of Demeter seemed to melt away as the lovers united for the first time, watched by the millions of sentinels in the night sky.

  Capt Haruka Kimura

  1 June, Year of Landing, late morning

  Camp Eight

  “Are you ready to fire her up?” James asked, tapping on the lifeless radio console inside the wreck of pod eleven.

  Only if it actually works this time. Haruka managed a weak smile. “Of course. Always ready to see if we can contact the other ships.”

  “Alright. Let me remove the battery bypass and we should be in business.” He slipped out of the cockpit and she could hear him grunt as he climbed up the precariously tilted ladder to the upper berth hallways.

  “I’ll believe it when I see it,” she muttered once he was out of earshot. A greasy knot tied in her stomach, and she closed her eyes to reflect on the situation.

  The first two attempts to revive the radio had been miserable disasters. James had been mystified after the radio failed to power up the first time, and swore that he had just miscalculated how long it would take to charge the batteries. The second failure alarmed the former technician, and he had spent the rest of the day and a sleepless night tracing the problem to a leak in the pod’s electrical system that drained the batteries as quickly as they could be charged.

  The process of setup, troubleshooting and repair took over a month of his spare time. In the meantime, farming had started in the colony, the dissidents grew louder in their calls for Haruka to be removed, and every survivor had been stressed to their limits. Haruka held little hope that the third attempt at reviving the radio would work, and that she could contact one of the other ships to mount a rescue. It was a Hail Mary at best; assuming the radio worked, they would have to be able to convey their position to another crew, and hope that they were in a position to build seaworthy ships to sweep the survivors of Camp Eight away.

  If by some miracle it happens, I’ll need to send word to Marsolek’s camp and get them over here too. I can’t leave them behind to fend for themselves.

  She shook aside the thought as folly. There were too many variables, and a barrier at any one would derail the entire plan. The best she could hope for was to simply be able to relay a message to her family and notify the other ships that they had survived.

  James returned and took the left hand seat in the pod, deferring the right hand seat – and radio – to Haruka. “We’re good to go. I checked and there’s power flowing out of the batteries.”

  “Here goes nothing.”

  She flipped the main switch on the computer followed by the radio power. The small LED screen that indicated the frequency flickered for a moment and then went dead. Haruka grimaced and flicked her hand in disgust at the console.

  “No go, James,” she said as she wiped the sweat from her brow.

  He muttered a curse under his breath, then pulled open the center console and crawled inside until the upper half of his body disappeared.

  “Fuck,” he grunted, his voice sounding hollow from the dampening of the enclosure.

  Haruka was forced to bite back her sarcasm. “Bad news?”

  James withdrew from the cramped console and immediately mounted the chair. His fingers ran along the seam of the window, where the woven frond patch covered the gaping hole left by the vacated glass. He cursed again as he poked his finger through the panel near the front edge, then traced a line down to the forward fittings of the compartment, where he flaked off some rust with his finger.

  “Water,” he grumbled. “The whole thing’s ruined. No way to fix it without cannibalizing another pod.”

  Haruka remained silent, grinding her teeth together. This revelation should not have shocked her, as their luck had been almost nonexistent since Raphael was destroyed. However, the pill was no less bitter to swallow.

  “I can go back to pod eight and be back…”

  “No,” she cut him off.

  “Captain?”

  “No more of this nonsense, James. This pod’s a wreck. Pod eight’s a wreck. They’re all useless, and you’ve had more than enough chances to get this thing working. Just give it up.”

  “But if we can contact the other…”

  “We can’t,” she shot back. “Marsolek has a better chance than we do at this point. It’s time to stop wasting your time and face the facts. This project is done.”

  He was about to protest, but a wave of nausea washed over her and she bolted from the pod. Haruka barely made it to the end of the ramp before she vomited and collapsed to her knees. James was only a few steps behind, and knelt beside her, patting her back.

  “Getting sick again?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “When was the last time you threw up?”

  “Last night.”

  “Weakness? Dizziness?”

  “I’m fine,” she protested.

  “Tell me,” he insisted. His tone was the same that he used to shame his children into telling the truth.

  “Two days ago.”

  “You want to go to the doctor?”

  “No, I’ll be fine.”

  Haruka took three steps toward the tree line, which began to blur before her, before throwing up again.

  “I’m taking you,” James said firmly. She did not protest.

  James hooked her arm over his shoulder to keep her steady as they walked. At first Haruka attributed her wobbliness to her vertigo combined with the shifting sands, but the situation was no better once they were on the path up the hill to the clinic. In fact the incline exaggerated the issue, and she found herself having a hard time standing up, much less walking in a straight line. She threw up again, this time in the middle of the road. James let her slip to her knees to retch out the last of her stomach’s contents.

  Haruka was aware during this process that Troy had joined them on the path, and her civil engineer had a brief conversation with James about her condition. They helped her back to her feet and carried her the remaining quarter mile to the village clinic. By the time they arrived, her vision was one blur of light brown that trailed into dark brown, with blue and green fuzz along the top where the jungle canopy should be. When they crossed through the doorway it all faded into a dark gray and black blur.

  Haruka’s stomach complained as she was laid on one of the beds. The coarse mat of fibrous leaves was icy cold against her skin, and she immediately curled up into the tightest ball she could. In the background she could hear James arguing with Maria, but she blocked out their words to concentrate on finding the most comfortable position she could find on the low slab.

  “I’m not a monster, Maria. I’m still a doctor above all else,” she heard Dr. Petrovsky say as he moved to her side. “Captain, can you hear me?”

  “Yeah,” she mumbled.

  A meaty, clammy hand clamped on her forehead. “You’ve got a fever, Captain. You’re going to have to stay here a bit so I can keep an eye on it.”

  Haruka nodded weakly. The motion caused the dizziness to flare up again, so she again became as still as she could.

  “James, I’ll need some rags from the back. Troy, get me water please. Distilled if you can get it. River water if you can’t. It needs to be as cool as possible, too.”

  “Yeah, Doc,” Troy said.

  A couple minutes passed as Dr. Petrovsky checked her pulse and respiration, and took a hand-off of supplies from James, whom he promptly sent out of the clinic to retrieve his son Will. Not more than a couple sec
onds after the storm curtain closed, she felt the presence of another person at her side.

  “Look at you,” Maria hissed. “You bitch at me to get to work, and what have you done for the village except take up Ken’s time and boss people around, huh? Where do you get off on that?”

  “That’s enough, Maria,” Petrovsky warned sternly.

  Haruka swallowed hard. She wanted to respond, but in her haze, her mind could not come up with a response quickly enough.

  “Well let me tell you; your days of sitting on your throne are over, and I’m going to sit here and watch you fall into obscurity.” The tone Maria’s voice took on was chilling and ominous. “If you thought you were useless before, you haven’t seen anything yet. No one will remember why they ever let you push us around.”

  “I said that’s enough!”

  Dr. Petrovsky burst into argument with Maria over her conduct. It seemed to rage on for minutes, with the doctor repeatedly commanding the furious widow to leave the clinic. The voices slowly faded, and Haruka drifted into dreams as her heavy eyelids closed and the spinning of the world subsided.

  The fever induced scene had her once again in the engine control room of the doomed sleeper ship. Maynard’s corpse was strapped in its seat, exactly as she had remembered, shredded by the shrapnel from the destroyed turbine. Though his body was limp and weeping with blood, Haruka could hear an evil laugh echo from his mouth. She screamed and covered her ears, shrinking back against the wall and away from the countenance of death.

  “No!” she screamed through her dream. Sound faded away again, and when she dared to open her eyes again, she looked into the bright, brown eyes and wicked smile of a familiar and friendly face. One that she had dearly missed.

  Marco…

  Gabrielle Serrano

  6 June, Year of Landing, sunset

  Camp Eight

  “This is my favorite time of day,” Kristin Vandemark said with a toothy grin. “I love all the colors in the sky and how the sun melts into the ocean.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Gabi agreed.

  The wind blew in a strong gust off of the water, rustling the palms above and eliciting an irritated call from the tropical gulls as they drifted in the sky above like dozens of colorful kites. Strong men from the village hefted loads of split logs down the strand and dumped them in a chaotic pile in the sand a few hundred feet to the side of the village path. There was to be a bonfire tonight, and some sort of celebration for Haruka. This confused Gabi greatly, since James had told Gabi that Haruka wasn’t coming back ever again.

  I don’t want a party if it means Haruka won’t be back.

  Will and his girlfriend Gina joined Gabi and Kristin under the swaying palm tree. The couple held hands, but their expressions were grim, without even the slightest hint of the warmth that Gabi usually felt when she saw them.

  “It’s time, Kris.” Will uttered solemnly.

  The smile disappeared from Kristin’s face and she nodded, then stood up and beckoned to Gabi with her outstretched hand. Gabi remained seated and drew her knees to her chest, resting her head on crossed arms.

  “No,” she pouted.

  “C’mon, Gabi. We don’t want to be late. Your mom’s already down there.”

  Gabi raised her voice to her teenaged caretakers. “No! I don’t want to go if Haruka won’t come back.”

  Kristin squatted down and lifted Gabi’s chin softly with her finger. “Gabi, sweetie, we’ve been through this before. Haruka isn’t coming back at all. She’s in Heaven now, remember?” Gabi nodded, even as her nerves tingled and her lip quaked. “We’re all really sad about it, and that’s why we’re having this party. We’re all getting together to remember her.”

  Gabi sniffed and nodded. Reluctantly, she took Kristin’s hand and walked with her and her companions to the beach, where hundreds of colonists were now milling about, finding seats in the sand and talking amongst each other. A few of the men who had carried the firewood now set to work arranging logs in the center of the human circle. Gabi knew that the bonfire would be ignited in mere minutes.

  “Let’s try to find your mom,” Will said as he looked around.

  Gabi nodded. Will lifted her onto his shoulders so she could get a better view of the crowd. Though the occasion was somber, she looked forward to the opportunity to sit next to the fire with her mother, which had not happened once since her father was killed. She scanned the gathering crowd but could not find her.

  “See her?” Will asked.

  “No. She’s not here,” she replied with growing disappointment.

  “I’m sure she’s here somewhere,” Gina added.

  The acrid smell of smoke mixed with the salty tang of the sea air as the fire grew from a tiny flicker to a steady flame, fueled by the wood and stoked by its tenders. Gabi’s attention was captured by the smoky tendrils and crimson flares as they hissed and danced in the dying light. Then three women began to dig at lumps in the sand on the far side of the fire, a couple dozen feet away. They revealed dark green and brown pods of leaves that they retrieved. When opened they revealed cooked fish, roots, and tropical fruits, adding to the symphony of smells in the air. Gabi’s mouth watered as she took in the tantalizing smells of the feast.

  “We get to eat all that?” she asked Will.

  “That and more. I heard there’ll be buckets of crabs to eat, too,” he replied.

  “Yummy!”

  She continued to watch the preparations with interest and anticipation. She had almost forgotten about finding her mother when she spotted her just beyond the crowd, talking with James and Dr. Petrovsky. She was clearly upset, as she shook her head and gestured wildly with her arms as the conversation progressed.

  “Mama’s over there, Will,” she pointed.

  He walked briskly with Gabi on his shoulders around the edge of the crowd, but stopped short as they came around the side of the circle and the conversation suddenly erupted over the din.

  “That’s not what happened,” Gabi’s mom shrieked, clutching her hair in her hands. Her mouth was twisted by her anguish and her eyes were swollen with tears.

  James returned a calming gesture that was mostly unheeded. “I know that. Jesus, Maria. Now’s not the time for this.”

  “No. It has to be now. You have to tell them. You have to get them to understand.”

  “Take it easy, Maria,” Dr. Petrovsky urged.

  “Why is Mama angry?” Gabi whispered in Will’s ear.

  He took Gabi off his shoulders and set her down, then turned her away from the argument. “We should go now.”

  “I won’t,” her mother cried out again. “They need to know. I can’t stand the whispers. The accusations behind my back.”

  “You’re worried about shadows that aren’t there,” James replied. “Come on, let’s go before you make a scene.”

  Gabi glanced over her shoulder. Her mother had a wild look in her eyes and was pushing back against James, who tried to restrain her and keep her from the crowd. By this time the people had stopped talking amongst each other, and every pair of eyes was fixated on her mother.

  “Do I have your attention now?” her mom cried out, pushing James aside and taking a few steps toward them, then shrugging off Dr. Petrovsky. “See what you’re doing to me? See what your judging has done to an innocent woman?”

  “Maria,” James pled, but she shoved him back again.

  “I didn’t kill Haruka. You all think that because I hated her that I killed her, that I’m no better than the pinche cabrón who murdered my husband. You all think that because I wanted to protect you all from her tyranny that I’m the reason she’s dead. Well, chingate. Fuck you all.” There was a moment’s dead pause as she caught her breath and steadied her shaky voice. “You’re the ones that are killing me.”

  She glared intently at the crowd before storming off, with the two men giving chase close behind. The pit of Gabi’s stomach fell out as her mother’s fierce temper and terrible insults echoed in her mind. She
fell to her knees and began to cry. Will and Gina knelt next to her, rubbing her back in comfort.

  “It’s okay, Gabi,” Gina soothed.

  “No it’s not. Mama’s mad at me again and I didn’t even do anything.”

  “No, no, sweetie. She wasn’t angry with you. I don’t even think she knew you were here.”

  “She was so mad,” she sobbed.

  “She was tired and upset,” Will corrected. “She’s been under a lot of stress for a long time. Sometimes grown-ups can’t handle everything, and we throw tantrums like that.”

  Gabi sniffed and looked up at her older friends through bleary eyes. “Mama’s not mad at me?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Then why did she say all those things? Are people being mean to her?”

  Will sighed and shifted from his crouch to a sitting position. “I’ll be honest, Gabi. There are a couple people who have said mean things about her over the past few days. They think that your mom killed Haruka.”

  “But she didn’t.” She looked up at him, desperately hoping that she was right about her mother, but dreading that Haruka might have borne her wrath. “Did she?”

  Gina wrapped her arms around Gabi and gave her a tight hug. “No. Doctor Petrovsky said that her old wound from the jaguar got infected again, and her body was too weak to fight it off this time. Haruka got really sick saving everyone from the ship when it blew up, and that’s why her body couldn’t handle it.”

  “Then why do people think Mama killed her?”

  Will gave a halfhearted laugh. “Because sometimes people think stupid things when they’re overworked and stressed. All of us adults are overworked right now, and some of us have made some bad choices lately.” Gina’s head turned, avoiding her boyfriend’s eyes. “I know I have, and I’m going to have to live with them.”

  Gabi thought for a moment about all of the adults going crazy. She did not like this prospect one bit.

  “So why don’t you work less?”