by J. J. Green
As he passed the corner of a building at the end of the lot, a hand grabbed his elbow and pulled him around and out of sight of the road. It was Cherry, standing in the shadows.
“Something’s going to happen at the tool shed,” she said. “I just went there to hide my weapon with the others. The place is crawling with Guardians.”
“Really? What are they doing?”
“Just hanging around in the street. Loitering.”
Ethan gave a snort of derision. “When did a Guardian ever loiter?”
“That’s my point. I think that somehow they’ve figured out what we plan to do. They’re waiting for us to bring over our weapons and then relieve us of them. Quite a few farmers went there already. I think they’re caught in the shed, not wanting to leave with Guardians in the area.”
“I won’t take mine over, then. I’ll find another place to hide it.”
“Exactly what I was thinking.”
“Wait,” said Ethan. “That’s no good. We can’t leave the others to get caught. How many Guardians did you see?”
“Five. But I can’t swear there aren’t more. It wasn’t like I stuck around and surveyed the place.”
“And how many Gens in the shed, do you think?”
“Twenty of us have guns. I guess most of them are there by now.”
“Twenty against five is pretty good odds,” Ethan said.
“Twenty untrained Gens against five highly trained Guardians with superior weapons, don’t forget.”
“I’m not forgetting.”
Their gazes met as they each made their decision.
“If we were fast… ” Ethan said.
“And if we approached from the east… ” said Cherry.
Simultaneously, they nodded.
Fifteen minutes later, after making a wide circle around the tool shed through several streets, the two Gens prepared to close the final distance. The Guardians wouldn’t be expecting anyone to approach the shed from the direction of the shuttle field. No Gens took the regular shuttles to the Nova Fortuna anymore.
If they rushed down the street, they could join the other farmers before the Guardians knew what was happening. Alone, a Gen didn’t stand a chance against a Guardian, but together they might be able to resist the attempt to take their weapons. At the very least, it would be a show of strength and an open demonstration that the Gens were not going to take their suppression lying down.
Ethan and Cherry were at the end of the street. Cherry had been correct. Five Guardians were spread about, doing bad impersonations of people hanging around with nothing to do. In their formal uniforms, the effect would have been almost comical if it weren’t for the fact they were armed.
The rest of the colonists had clearly gotten the message that something confrontational and dangerous was about to go down, because this part of the settlement was entirely deserted.
“Okay,” Ethan whispered. “Let’s go.”
Their weapons at the ready, they set off running down the street, stooping low and trying to make as little noise as possible.
Their efforts paid off. They made it nearly a third of the way before a Guardian noticed them. She called out for them to stop. Neither Ethan nor Cherry even broke pace. Ethan gripped his gun tighter and sped up. There was no sense in trying to avoid detection now.
“Hey,” the Guardian called more harshly. “Stop right there. Now!”
The farmers in the shed must have realized what was happening because the door opened a crack. Light from inside spilled out.
“Stop or I’ll shoot,” shouted the Guardian, but Ethan was almost at the door. It was widening in front of him. A hiss and a burst of warmth came from behind him, then he was through the door and inside the shed.
He spun around. Where was Cherry? She was flying into the shed right behind him. With a slam, the door closed.
Ethan grabbed Cherry’s upper arms. “Are you okay? I thought you were hit.”
She shook her head, panting. “A round hit the sidewalk between us.”
“That was lucky,” a man said. It was Misha.
“I don’t think so,” Cherry replied, still gasping. “They were so close, they could have hit either of us if they’d wanted. I think they were only trying to scare us.”
“That’s something,” said Misha. “They aren’t prepared to kill us just yet.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t get to that,” said a woman called Phy.
The door rattled in its frame. Someone was trying to open it, but it had been locked after Ethan and Cherry went in. A succession of loud, hard knocks sounded out. “Open up,” a Guardian said. “We’re taking your weapons into safekeeping. If you just hand them over, no one will get hurt and there won’t be any repercussions. We know exactly who you all are. If you don’t comply, you’ll be breaking colony laws and you’ll be subject to punishment.”
“What’s that, I wonder?” said Misha “The punishment, I mean.”
“They’ll have to decide what law we’re breaking first,” Cherry said. “I don’t think there is one referring to weapons. They aren’t mentioned in either the old or the revised Manual.”
The door resounded with another loud knocking. “Come out. You have one minute until we force you.”
Ethan went over to the door. “You’re the ones acting illegally here. Guardians have no jurisdiction in this colony, even if we were breaking any laws, which we aren’t. You fired on me and Cherry with no provocation. If you don’t back off and leave us to go about our legal business, you will be the ones in contravention of colony laws. We give you one minute to vacate this area.”
“Ha,” said Misha. “That told them.”
But as he turned from the door to face the farmers, Ethan’s expression was grave. “What I want to know is, how did they know what we were doing here?”
The implication of his words lay heavy. Gazes were shared around the room. Someone had informed the Guardians about the plan to stash the weapons in the tool shed. There was no other explanation for them being there. One of the reasons they’d chosen the tool shed as the hiding place was because it wouldn’t be unusual to see farmers come and go from the place. It was very unlikely that a Guardian had noticed their movements and guessed what they were doing.
Seconds dragged past in silence.
“I can’t believe anyone would do that,” Cherry said quietly. “Who would do that?” Her eyes searched the faces of those around her.
“Someone on the lookout for themselves,” said a woman.
The farmers shifted uneasily, waiting for the Guardians to make a move. They stood and sat in the cramped space, surrounded by shelves filled with powered farming tools. It occurred to Ethan that the tools could double as weapons in a pinch, then he winced at the thought of the kind of damage they would inflict on the human body.
More than a minute had passed. The Guardians seemed to have backed down on their threat.
“Should I look outside?” Misha asked.
“No,” Ethan replied. “Wait a little longer. They might be expecting us to open the door out of curiosity. It would make forcing us out a lot easier.”
Another minute passed, then another. By the time half an hour had passed, the farmers were growing fidgety. Ethan felt the same way. The waiting was unbearable. He almost yearned for the Guardians to burst in.
Abrupt knocks made the entire room of farmers jump. “We demand that you open up on the authority of the Leader of the Nova Fortuna colony.”
“Well, that was quick,” Cherry said to Ethan. “You told them they didn’t have any authority, so they went and got the authority.”
“We do not recognize the legality of your demand that we leave,” Ethan retorted. “Nova Fortuna has no Leader.”
“The newly elected Leader is Anahi. On her authority, we demand that you leave.”
“Shit,” Ethan said. “They’ve elected that Woken.”
“Who’s elected her?” Cherry asked. “We didn’t vote.”
&n
bsp; “I bet they’ve changed the rules so that we can’t vote,” said Misha. “They’re just doing whatever they want to get their way. I don’t know. Maybe we should give up and leave quietly? They said there won’t be any repercussions.”
“I don’t believe that for a minute,” Ethan said. “They know exactly who we are. We’ve declared our hand. There’s no turning back now. I’m for fighting them.” He held up his weapon. “Who’s with me?”
Cherry followed suit and raised her gun. One by one, the rest did the same. All except Misha. Finally, he raised his weapon too.
Ethan said, “We won’t open the door except as a last resort. We can fire through the shutters. My guess is that one or two Guardians are directly behind the door. The rest are probably either next to them or across the street, ready to grab us if we run. Set your guns to stun.”
“Stun?” Cherry asked. “Isn’t that a bit stupid? I’m pretty sure they aren’t planning to stun us.”
“You said you thought they deliberately missed us when we ran in here.”
“That was before they had the authority of the self-appointed Leader. Now they can do what they like.”
“We don’t know that,” Ethan replied. “And I’d rather avoid more loss of life. Too many people have died already.”
Her brow wrinkling in disapproval, Cherry turned the dial on her weapon.
“Right,” Ethan said. “You two on these shutters. You two on those.” He motioned the farmers he’d pointed at to their positions. “Cherry, you and me are aiming for long range targets.”
He took up a position facing the crack between one set of shutters. The pair of farmers he’d nominated stood on each side, ready to fire through at an angle.
Cherry went to the other side of the room, and stood with her rifle at her shoulder, left foot forward.
Ethan gave a nod, and the shutters opened. The gaps were just wide enough to shoot through. Pulse slugs hissed from every weapon, and in the enclosed space the air was tinged with their faint, acrid after burn.
From outside came the Uhhh of a pulse reaching its target followed by the sound of a body hitting the ground. A flicker of movement passed on the opposite side of the street and Ethan’s finger jolted on his trigger. The figure was gone. He didn’t know if he’d scored a hit.
A massive blow hit the door. At the same time, a pulse round hit one of the shutters. Half of the round made it through and grazed Misha’s face. He gasped and dropped his gun, his hand gripping the spot.
“Close the shutters,” Ethan shouted. As they swung to, another massive blow hit the door, but it held. Then it began to smoke. Having failed to batter it in, the Guardians were firing their weapons at the door. The smoke quickly thickened.
“Move back,” Ethan said. “The minute you see any of them come through, start shooting.” Some of the farmers spread themselves along the wall on each side of the door. Others found positions around the room where they were able to take aim.
Ethan held his rifle grimly at his shoulder. He could hardly believe that only a few weeks previously, at the execution of the Natural Movement saboteur, Strongquist had patted his shoulder and called him a hero. Now he was in armed conflict with the people who had turned up to rescue them—the people the Gens had named Guardians because they believed they would help protect them from the dangers of the new world. Now, it looked like they needed defending from their Guardians. How had it come to this?
The smoke from the door was filling the room. The melting material gave off a choking and unpleasant reek.
Any minute, the Guardians would be through and the firing would begin. Ethan wished he’d had a chance to talk to Cariad. She was a Woken. If he didn’t make it, he hoped she would sort out the colony’s strife.
Chapter Eleven
Cariad headed toward Anahi’s quarters, determined to make the woman think twice about her actions. Visiting the Guardians’ ship had been an interesting distraction, but Anahi’s not-so-subtle move to wrest power from the Gens had grated on Cariad more and more in the intervening hours. She was damned if she was going to stand by and allow someone take the colony in a direction that made a mockery of everything it was supposed to stand for.
Anahi lived in the agricultural area of Nova Fortuna, which spanned three kilometers of the Outer Rim. She was responsible for developing crops that would grow in the conditions of the new planet. Some of the fields that had helped sustain two thousand Gens during their long space voyage had been converted. They now held the new planet’s soil in experimental beds where Anahi could test the newly modified crops.
In the years before Arrival Day, Cariad had enjoyed going to the fields. The massive lights mimicked nearly temperate climate levels of daylight, and the growing plants gave the air a “green” smell, so she felt almost as though she were back on Earth. During those two years since they had both been revived, Anahi had seemed a cordial enough colleague when they’d met during Cariad’s visits. The emotional delicacy Cariad had noted before departure had been the same but Anahi had never been unpleasant. Cariad wondered how long she’d been planning to move the colony to Woken control.
On her way to the residential section of the agricultural area, Cariad spotted Anahi working in a field. The older woman stood up from a crouch, shears in hand, holding a handful of plant stalks. Cariad changed direction and made her way down a muddy path toward her.
Anahi’s vision aids really did seem to give her eyes in the back of her head, Cariad mused, as the woman turned around when she approached, even though she’d been facing away. Anahi’s arms fell limp. “I thought you would be along sooner or later.”
“I wish it had been sooner,” Cariad said, standing at the edge of the rice paddy. “Can we talk?”
“If you like, but you aren’t going to change my mind.” Anahi put the cut stalks in a trug and squatted down once more.
“Firstly,” Cariad said, “it’s clear that you have the backing of most of the Woken because no one spoke out against you, but you have absolutely no mandate for what you’re doing.”
Anahi shrugged. “The Generational Colonists had no mandate to revise the Manual. That didn’t stop them. I’m not doing anything different than they did, except that I know what I’m doing.”
“Do you? When the Gens changed some parts of the Manual, they were only trying to exercise some control of their situation. They didn’t choose this life. We consigned them to it. It shouldn’t come as a surprise they want a say in their destiny.”
Anahi was examining the base of a plant. “I don’t disagree. And, in fact, I don’t blame them for what they did. As you say, it’s a natural human reaction. However, they had no automatic right to do it, so when you come here and tell me that we have no right to take control away from them, I can only point out the hypocrisy of your position.”
“But we’re the ones who wrote the Manual,” said Cariad. “If anyone should abide by its rules, it’s us. Do you want to demonstrate that it’s acceptable to seize power and do whatever you like? That’s a dangerous precedent to set.”
“I didn’t hear your protests when you found out about the revisions they’d made after you were revived.” Anahi deposited another handful of stalks in her trug and leaned in to cut a third.
“You’re not getting it,” Cariad exclaimed. “We can’t change everything just because we think we know better.”
“No. You’re not getting it.” Anahi stood and pointed her shears at Cariad. “We can and should change things because we do know better. If you had a dog, would you let it run through traffic because it saw a rabbit? If you had a child, would you allow it to wear summer clothes when it was freezing outside?” She walked over to Cariad, her basket hooked over her arm.
“Look at these rice plants. They’re growing pretty well, don’t you think? If none of us had survived cryo, do you think a Gen could have modified them to grow in this soil? Of course not. Even the ones who specialized in genetics have next to no practical experience. It would
have been years before they grasped the techniques required to do the work I do. If I wasn’t around, they would have been forced to grow seed suited to Earth soil, which would give half the yield. Back home, it wouldn’t matter. There’s enough surplus food that no one starves from a few crop failures, or there used to be anyway. Here, low yields could mean the difference between survival and death.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” retorted Cariad. “You did survive cryo, and here you are, doing your work. No Gen would have stopped you. The entire colony recognizes the importance of what you do. You didn’t have to seize control in order to modify crop genes.”
“Didn’t I?” Anahi seemed to glare behind her visor. “There are two thousand Gens and only a hundred of us with another hundred still in cryo. All it would take would be one madman, Cariad, one cultist or schizophrenic—”
“That would never happen. All the First Generation’s and all the stored gametes’ genes were screened for mental illness.”
“Or one power-hungry idiot,” Anahi continued, regardless, “to persuade the rest of them to follow him, and who knows what could happen? They could decide to murder us all in our beds. There’s no protection for us out here. Or at least there wasn’t until I asked the Guardians for their support. Up until now, the Generational Colonists could have done whatever they liked.”
“Now I’m thinking you’re the one who’s insane.”
“I’m not mad,” Anahi said crisply, pushing past Cariad on the narrow path, “I’m pragmatic.” She set off toward the glasshouses that bordered the fields.
Cariad followed on her heels. “You’re reacting to a situation that you think might happen. You’re punishing the Gens before they’ve done anything wrong.”
“Helping someone isn’t a punishment, and they need our help.”
