“I said clear out!” the lead thug said. With that some of the thugs pushed past him and went to forcibly remove people from the clinic.
“Tell them to stop,” Conn said to the leader.
The leader was no doubt saying something snide that he thought was witty, but Conn punched him in the face before he got much of it out. She definitely broke his nose. He staggered back and onto his rear end, clucking as blood drizzled down his throat.
Two thugs were behind and to the side of the leader. One hesitated. Conn went for him first as the other tried to wrap her in a bear hug. She danced out of his way and connected with the other’s cheek. She definitely broke that, too.
She turned and kicked out at the one who had tried to grab her, but only grazed his hip. Now the leader was up again and in a rage. He grabbed Conn’s left arm. With her right, she punched him where human kidneys are. He went whoof and staggered back down onto the floor.
The three that had gone to force others out were interested in Conn, now, after their leader’s yelling if not before. The one who had tried to grab her kept his distance. The four encircled her.
One got the flat top of a pickaxe in his ribs, courtesy of a volunteer. He went down in a heap. Conn picked the one behind her, whirled around and lunged at him. She got her shoulder into his ribs, and kept churning her legs, driving him backward until he hit the wall. The air puffed out of his lungs, and his head made a loud crack.
The last two were disinclined to keep fighting. Conn eyed them and tried not to shake her sore hand as they crept over to their fallen comrades to help them up. They all managed to limp away after a time.
The volunteers held their hands over their heads and made the strangest aaahhhhh noise. Conn blinked at them, then realized it was Sidereal applause.
# # #
They had what amounted to a soup kitchen. It was supposed to operate every fifth day, but the government’s goons had cleared them out a month ago. They started it up again. Conn would stand guard here instead of the clinic for the few hours of operation. She hoped the clinic would be OK without her.
“Does this intimidation happen all the time?” Conn asked Jeffrey.
“There is a vote in twenty days,” he told her. “They run for re-election on the platform that we need them for everything. They spend the weeks leading up to the vote making sure that’s true.”
“Don’t you have police?”
“The powerful do. We don’t.”
Conn was troubled to see just how many people showed up for a hot bowl of soup. They were thin, often dirty, and skittish, probably waiting for the goons to show up. Conn wondered how many people had wanted to come but stayed away because of the threats of violence.
She used some of the time she was spending waiting for trouble to show up to settle a question that had been nagging at her for years.
“Jeffrey, can you read minds?”
“We can ‘read’ whatever thoughts you form into words,” Jeffrey said. “Mostly, that means we can read what you intend to say.”
“Mostly, but that’s not all you can read,” Conn said.
“That’s right.”
“That’s how you knew Ryan wanted to talk about trade.”
Jeffrey nodded. Persisting had always denied that Pelorians could read minds, though they seemed to use the same “power” or technology as the Sidereals to speak mind-to-mind. Conn had always doubted him, with good reason, it turned out.
Conn made herself conspicuous outside the hollow, hoping to dissuade any thugs who were inclined to violence before they got there. It seemed to work: the soup kitchen lasted more than three hours, and stopped when there was no one else to feed.
THIRTY-NINE
Heart-to-Heart
February, 2040
Organizers wanted Conn to help resurrect their “meals on wheels” program, as Conn thought of it, but Jeffrey and his cohorts had different plans for Conn going door-to-door. She accompanied volunteers who were passing out get-out-the-vote literature. In addition to the literature, citizens got to meet Conn, and were promised that they would see her again at their polling place. The volunteers reminded potential voters about the upcoming council meeting as well, which was open to the public but not well-attended. Conn’s aversion to being a decoration welled up a few times going door-to-door like this, but she could see the hope and confidence she inspired in some of the Sidereals she met, and she was heartened.
She did another soup kitchen. Otherwise she spent most of her time at the clinic, where the work was finished on her eleventh day on Mars. She did take a regular turn helping guard the portal, which seemed only fair.
The council meeting was on her fifteenth day.
Both the legislative and executive functions of the government were performed by what seemed to Conn like a city’s common council back on Earth. She recognized the presiding officer and a couple of others. The ones who killed Daniels, she thought. The ones who tried to kill Izzy, and Ryan, and me.
Jeffrey had explained that the government was deeply rooted and answerable only to the powerful, whose interests were advanced while most citizens struggled to subsist. It didn’t want to use technology, with its power to improve lives; it didn’t want trade or even contact with other races, an isolationism that had kept them well-hidden but which also let them hide the settlement’s poverty and squalor.
So the council might have been surprised to see two dozen more Sidereals at its meeting than usual.
The council sat behind a long desk on a raised platform at the front of the room. There was seating before it for close to 150. Normally, only twenty or so showed up—the connected could get the government to do things without having to slum it at a council meeting, Conn learned.
Jeffrey pointed out the council’s “bailiff.” He was an enormous creature, and not just compared to his fellows—as tall as six-foot-six, broad shoulders, lean waistline, bald head. “You’ve seen an Aphelial and I haven’t, Conn,” Jeffrey said, “but my theory is that he’s got some Aphelial blood. Someone from that family has been the council bailiff for fifty years or more. They’ve all looked like that.”
Conn appraised the bailiff. She had wondered how they would intimidate people at a council meeting. Now she knew.
The meeting began and proceeded like a council meeting in America: adoption of the minutes, secretary reads agenda, bills voted on and passed. In three instances, an “expert” testified on the subject the council was discussing. This “expert” testimony reinforced the council’s obvious opinion without exception.
They passed a resolution calling for the destruction of the Dyna-Tech portal, pretending, as Jeffrey had predicted they would, that they hadn’t passed that same resolution twice before, without effect because Jeffrey’s people had been successfully guarding it. Jeffrey assured Conn the newly passed resolution would be as toothless as the previous ones.
One agenda item touched on the vote in ten days. The council passed a bill authorizing money to hire freelance security personnel for the polls. Conn had no doubt that “freelance security personnel” meant the kind of “personnel” she’d beaten bloody at the clinic.
Soon enough it was time for an open floor. One older Sidereal rose and complained about “security personnel” coming to his hollow and tossing the place, looking for get-out-the-vote literature Conn had helped deliver.
“Did they find it?” a councilmember asked.
“Find what?”
“What they were looking for?”
“What difference does that make? It’s not illegal to have literature, and my home shouldn’t be wrecked by those goons in any case!”
The presiding officer regarded the speaker, then turned toward the bailiff. “Bailiff,” he said, “please escort the gentleman outside. I won’t have these unruly exclamations during our meetings.”
The bailiff stalked over to the man, who seemed rather than concerned, resigned. The bailiff grabbed the citizen’s shoulder, causing him to suck
in a breath through clenched teeth. The bailiff steered the citizen roughly toward the back of the room.
Conn figured she was there for a reason. To let the council know its opponents weren’t scared anymore. She rose and said, “stop pushing him.” The bailiff ignored her. She jogged down between columns of chairs as the presiding officer called for order. Conn arrived at the exit just as the bailiff had shoved the citizen out the door. “That was uncalled for,” she said, loudly and clearly, balled fists at her sides.
“Bailiff, escort the human outside, too.”
The bailiff turned and looked at the presiding officer with disdain, the look on his face saying I don’t want to deal with her, why are you making me? He turned toward Conn. He took a step in her direction. “Touch me and you’ll never use the hand again,” she said.
“Then leave quietly.”
They stared each other down for long moments.
“Only if you come with me.”
The bailiff sighed, and motioned toward the door. They exited.
Conn turned on the bailiff. “Are we gonna go?”
“I don’t want to fight you,” the bailiff said.
“I’m five-foot-two and fifty-five kilograms soaking wet,” Conn said (using the corresponding measurements in the Sidereal language). “You’re . . . two of me.” If she could send the bailiff back into the room hobbling, bruised, and bloody, she would make the kind of statement—
“That’s why I don’t want to fight you,” the bailiff said.
Conn growled and readied a super strong punch, but the bailiff turned and walked back into the council room, Conn gaping after him.
She heard a smattering of Sidereal applause as he made his way to the front of the room.
Just don’t get arrested, Jeffrey had counseled her. She started for the door, but held back.
She made her frustrated way back to her quarters.
# # #
Her seventeenth day on Mars, a Sidereal she didn’t know hurried to her. “There’s another—whatever, human? Is that right? There’s another human outside. I didn’t want to let him in without talking to you. We can’t understand a word he’s saying.”
Conn put on her T-field and grabbed her breathing bubble, and hurried back with the Sidereal. They exited the settlement through the airlock. Right outside, looking put upon, was Ryan. Conn tried to tamp down her anger and brief thrill at seeing him. Another human, right? After seventeen days without. That was the momentary thrill.
Ryan handed her a radio. She held her breath, took off her breathing bubble, and put the radio on. She replaced the bubble.
“How are you?”
“I’m fine, Ryan, how are you?” she said brightly.
“They sent me to check on your progress.”
“You volunteered, didn’t you?”
“I pointed out that I’d been here before and dealt with the Sidereals. I meant literally dealt—I didn’t tell them that.” He seemed pleased with himself at the inside joke.
“Well, it’s good to see another human.” That was definitely it.
As they spoke, they walked, Conn leading him down and around the hill, and up another, steeper one, with a ledge up top offering what she had learned was the best view of the area.
Ryan caught her up on developments on Earth. They still didn’t know how it was happening.
“If it’s coming from space, it’s got to be the spacecraft, right?” Conn said.
“They’re actually thinking the sun is involved somehow,” Ryan said. “The reaction happens when there’s sunlight but not in the dark.”
Conn told Ryan what she’d been doing on Mars. Ryan was impressed.
“I always figured you could kick my ass,” he said. “Give you superpowers and you’re dangerous.”
They mounted the hill, a snap in the low gravity, and before long came to the top. They moved carefully onto the ledge, and looked out at the Martian landscape. The burnt orange of the rock and soil was warm, coloring clusters of hills and rills to the north. To the south, a desert, rusty sand stretching almost to the horizon. To the east, a great mountain range erupted from the soil.
“My God,” Ryan said. “It’s gorgeous.”
“Isn’t it? We never got a chance to just enjoy being here. Looking at stuff like this.”
They watched the feeble wind kick up dust in silence for long moments.
“Conn, about what I said before you left—”
“Which part?”
“That I wanted to get back together. Spend the end of the world together. I realize that probably sounded—”
“Selfish?”
“—selfish. I’m glad you’re here, doing all the amazing stuff you’re doing, trying to save the world. But, look. I want you to think about it. No, listen. Think about it for after you’ve done everything you can possibly do. There’s no reason for us to be alone for this.”
Conn hadn’t thought about the end of the world much lately. The reminder of it rankled her. “I think I’m supposed to be alone, Ryan,” she said. “I keep losing people who’ve been close to me. I need to take God’s hint.”
Ryan said nothing, but Conn could read the disappointment on his face. She was silent, too.
“So,” Ryan finally said. “I should tell them, what?”
“Tell NASA and whoever?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell them I’m working on gaining their trust. Tell them they’ve probably got tech that can bring down the Aphelial spacecraft. If that’s the source of the problem, we can at least stop it from getting any worse.”
“But they don’t think the spacecraft is the problem,” Ryan reminded her.
“I didn’t exactly know that, did I, Ryan?”
“Don’t get mad at me,” he said.
“You know what? Let’s go. I’ve got shit to do.”
“Fine.”
She spun on her heels and started down the hill. She looked back to say “Are you coming?” when she saw him stumble. The ground beneath one of his feet crumbled, and he toppled. Over the ledge was at least ten meters straight down. She lunged back and got hold of his arm, but as she did, the other foot slipped over the edge. He slipped out of her grasp. She grabbed anything of his she could, and she got his wrist.
On Mars, Ryan with a T-field and breathing bubble weighed about thirty-six kilograms—almost eighty pounds. Conn strained to hold him up, but he was bringing her down. She yelled with the effort. She crouched for better leverage, and he slipped down further—but she held his wrist fast. His other hand slapped at the ledge, trying to find purchase to pull himself up.
At last he found a crack he could shove his toes in and ease Conn’s burden. She rocked back on her heels and pulled, and he rose—
The ground beneath Conn broke away, and she was slipping off the ledge herself, pushing Ryan back down. She kept hold of his wrist with one hand and with the other, found a crack to hold on to. She heard a rain of rock and soil rattling off Ryan’s breathing bubble below.
Now Ryan could find a grip on the new, thinner ledge, and he pulled himself up. “Let go of my hand,” he rasped. He scrabbled up, on top of Conn, who could now grab hold of the ledge with two hands. She pulled herself up, too. They panted, Ryan on top of her. She rolled him off.
“What is the matter with you?” Conn screeched.
“What?”
“You almost got us killed!”
“It wasn’t my fault!”
Conn growled and pulled herself up to standing. Ryan remained panting on his knees. “Come on, let’s get out of here before the rest of the ledge goes.” Ryan rose and followed her.
They half walked, half shuffled down the hill, Conn probably going too fast but not caring. They said not a word to each other. After long minutes, they were back at the airlock door to the settlement.
“Conn,” Ryan said as she faced the door waiting for it to open. “Conn. Thank you.”
She whirled around and jabbed a finger in his chest. “We’re even
.”
FORTY
Deliver
February, 2040
“I’ll come back for your vote,” Conn told Jeffrey. It was her eighteenth day on Mars. “I promise. But if we’re going to take down that Aphelial spacecraft, we’ve got to get started. I assume you can’t lend me a gun I can plug in and fire from the surface of Earth to take them out.”
“No,” Jeffrey said. “Nothing like that.”
“Then please, give me what you’ve got,” Conn said. “Let me go home with it, and let us start installing it or learning it or whatever we need to do. And then I’ll come back for your vote. I think I’ve really helped out here.”
“No question,” Jeffrey said. “You’ve given the poorest Sidereals food, medical care, and hope. You’ve frankly done more than I could have expected, considering your motivation.”
“And I’ll come back to police the polls for you on the day of your vote. I give you my word.”
Jeffrey sighed. He didn’t have official access to any weaponry; as he did with Izzy and the stealth module, he would have to sneak away with it. And that could prove more challenging, because what he would give her was much bigger and heavier.
Conn followed Jeffrey outside. He led them around the hill to another set of airlock double doors. Jeffrey swiped a stolen card and inputted a code, and the doors opened.
Conn was in an arsenal. A huge cave full of weapons that put the Aphelials’ in their weapon room to shame.
Deeper in the cave were three fighters, each about the size of an Aphelial fighter. There was a much larger exit on the other side of the room, big enough to fit one of the spacecraft through.
“You had spacecraft, and you were going to let us starve to death?” Conn exclaimed.
“These are not our spacecraft, Conn,” Jeffrey said. “They belong to the government, who will not see them used for any purpose. We’re told they don’t fly, in any event. I’ve always suspected but never been able to prove that’s not true. I advocated on your behalf, when you were stuck here. I tried. They wouldn’t budge.”
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