by Rick Partlow
"Maybe for a little while," I said doubtfully. "I still have work to do."
***
"Town" didn't mean Harristown, the capital; that was "the city," and it was a flight away, not a short drive. Even New Jerusalem, which was smaller and a bit closer, was too far to go on a regular basis. No, for us kids, "town" meant Lebanon. It was little more than a local shipping hub, where trucks brought in raw materials that couldn't be harvested locally and the local farmers came in with their power wagons and hauled their supplies back to their homesteads. But anywhere there were more than two buildings sitting next to each other, there was going to be stop-and-eat kind of place; and, when it was the only place around for a few dozen square kilometers, it was going to attract the local kids.
Yoder's had been around nearly as long as the colony, but hadn't grown one square meter in that whole time. It was a shack, mostly built from local wood except for the kitchen, which had been poured from the last canister of buildfoam left over after the shipping warehouse had been laid out. The place had never been favored by the church elders, but they'd never gone as far as shutting it down, just restricted it from expanding. Which meant that its half a dozen tables were always taken and most people wound up leaning on the wooden bar that went all the way around the shack.
The bar was packed when Jason and I arrived, and I pulled the four-wheeler into the lot between Yoder's and the shipping station next door, then we headed to the order window and got in line behind a few other kids.
"Cal!" I heard a female voice behind me and turned to see Rachel running up with her friend Lisa in tow.
Rachel Lowenstein and her family lived on the farm north of our property and I'd been in love with her since I was ten. It had only taken another six years before she'd felt the same way. She was tall for a girl---well, tall for a Canaanite girl; Jason says we're all trolls compared to normal people---with curves in all the right places, and sandy blond hair tied into twin braids. She was, I thought, the most beautiful girl on the entire planet.
"Hey, Rache," I said, smiling as she stepped up and gave me a quick kiss, after a glance around to make sure no adults were watching. A couple of kids made cat calls but we ignored them.
"Have you guys heard the news?" Lisa asked breathlessly, her dark eyes shining with interest. Lisa Stanfell was even taller than Rachel, and too skinny for my tastes, with dark brown hair cut short. "Isn't it crazy? I never thought it would happen."
"It was inevitable," Jason argued, shaking his head, in that tone that had gotten him picked on in school. "Maybe if there was never a Transition Drive, and everyone still had to use the wormhole jumpgates, the truce could have lasted. But with anyone with a ship able to jump into any system, there was no way the Neutral Zone was going to last. I'm just surprised it took this long."
"Oh yeah, Mr. Professor?" That was Harry Paskowski; his grandfather owned the largest farm in the whole area. He thought that made him hot shit; I thought he looked like a moron with his scraggly beard and fat nose and pretentiously flashy clothes. Also, he kept trying to cozy up to Rachel, constantly giving gifts to her mom and talking about how their families should unite. "So, tell us then," he went on in his whiney voice, "what's gonna' happen?"
"What do you think happens in war, Harry?" Jason said, cocking his head towards him in a mocking pose. "People are going to die. Half a million civilian colonists just like us are already dead."
"Not like me!" Harry spluttered, half-laughing. "Bunch of outlaw squatters on a worthless ball of dirt, scratching out a living like animals..."
"They were still people, Harry," Rachel said, disapproval in her eyes, and I had to suppress a grin.
That made him tone it down a notch, but the look on his face was still condescending. "Okay, I'm sorry," he said---to Rachel, not Jason. "But they were squatting on a planet the Tahni think is theirs. It's not like they didn't know there was danger."
"They were being reckless," Jason agreed, "but it doesn't matter now. The truce has officially been suspended. Jameson is going to retaliate."
"If you're that worried about it," Harry scoffed, "why don't you go join up?"
"I'm thinking I might," Jason said, shrugging and looking away.
I did a double-take. "What?" I demanded, grabbing his arm and turning him towards me. "When did that happen?"
"You're going into the Academy, Jason?" Lisa asked, her eyes wide.
"No, not the Academy," he corrected her, shaking his head. "My test scores aren't high enough. I was thinking of enlisting."
"Since when?" I asked him again, but he didn't meet my eyes right away.
"For a while now," he admitted quietly. "I mean, Primary School's over for us now...and it's not like there's a university on this planet that offers the education I'm looking for. It's either the military or apply for a scholarship, and like I said," he shrugged, "my test scores aren't that high. If I serve, I get tuition and transportation to any off-world school I want after my first enlistment."
"Those tests are messed up," Lisa said, a little anger in her voice. "You're one of the smartest guys I know."
"Thanks, Lisa," Jason said, and I rolled my eyes at the sudden shy meekness of his tone. I knew he liked Lisa, but he'd never made a move on her, despite hours of encouragement from me. "Anyway," he went on, "I already have the enlistment request filled out. I was just waiting to tell my parents first."
"My dad would shit a brick if I told him I was joining the military," Lisa commented, giggling a little in spite of the gravity of the situation.
"Jason's family aren't Friends," Harry reminded her, a bit snidely I thought. But then, I thought everything he said came across as snide.
He was right though: besides being Offworlders, the Chens weren't part of the Church. They weren't even believers in anything, though I'd cautioned Jason the first time we met not to spread that around. From what he told me, a lot of people on Earth and the larger colonies thought the same way. I didn't think I could live that way.
"They'll be okay with it," Jase said, half sounding like he was trying to convince himself. "Either way, I'm doing it," he decided.
"You kids gonna' order something?" Old Yoder asked us with a voice like gravel mixed with broken glass. I didn't know his first name; everyone just called him Old Yoder. He looked weathered and had an air of world-weariness to him, which suited a man who had to be well over 150 years old by now. There was no one on the planet older than him and only a few of the Church elders that could come close to matching his years.
"Yeah, I'll have a vanilla shake," I told him, fishing a couple tradenotes out of my pants pockets. Jase told me, and I'd seen on the NewsNets I'd watched at his parents' house, that most people in the larger colonies and everyone on Earth used electronic accounts for payments and never used physical cash, but that had never taken hold here. Maybe because the Church frowned on people having holotanks and watching the entertainment feeds from the Instell ComSats.
"No one here cares how they do things anywhere else," was how my father had put it whenever I'd broached the subject.
His voice was still echoing in my head when I heard it echo in my ears.
"Caleb Mitchell," he growled, "why the devil are you wasting time in this Altar to Idle Hands instead of fixing that harvester?"
I turned so fast I dropped the shake on the ground and it splattered all over the place, narrowly missing Jason and Rachel's shoes. Standing just three meters behind me were Dad, Isaac and Pete, lined up like a row of nesting dolls, each with a matching accusatory glare, even if Pete's was mostly done in a ten-year-old's miniature imitation of his father and older brother.
Church Elder Jacob Mitchell reminded me of those ancient statues from old Earth that I'd seen in History class in school. His face was a perpetual disapproving frown, avoiding imperiousness only because he found things in himself to disapprove of as well. I shared the Mitchell family's broad, open face and dirty blond hair with him and Isaac and Pete, though my hair was cut fairly short,
while Dad's was tied into a ponytail and darker in his full beard, Isaac's was shaggier with a handlebar mustache and Pete's was a youngster's unruly mane.
And Isaac certainly shared our father's disapproving frown, for all that he was only seven years older than me.
"Sorry, Dad," I stuttered, caught totally off guard, my eyes flashing back and forth from his grim visage to the mess on the ground, and wondering if I dared to clean it up at the moment. "I was working on it, but then Jason came to tell me the news. Did you hear? It's the Tahni...they blew up a bunch of colonies and now we're at war with them again."
"We aren't at war with anyone," Dad corrected me, expression growing even darker, if that was possible. "Maybe your unbeliever friend and his people are at war, but that is none of our concern. Your concern should be repairing that harvester so that our people don't go hungry during the Night."
"Don't expect me to do your chores for you, Caleb," Isaac warned, talking down his nose to me as he always did. "I have my own responsibilities."
"It's almost done," I insisted, a flash of familiar anger at Isaac straightening my back and drowning out the intimidation I always felt when Dad lectured me. "I'll have it back in the fields before dinner."
"All right then," my father said with a sigh. "I have to get the wagon loaded with feed and get it back to the stables. Make sure that harvester is running before you come home."
"Yes, sir," I said, nodding. "But Dad, what about the war? What happens if the Tahni attack here?"
"They left us be in the last war, they'll leave us be now as well." He waved a hand dismissively, turning back towards the shipping depot. "My father didn't bring our family here to fight the Commonwealth's wars. Concentrate on the important things, Caleb."
I didn't say anything, just watched them walk away, Isaac shooting me another look of disapproval before they disappeared around the corner.
"Well, that was bad timing," Jason cracked, and I had to chuckle. He'd never been cowed by my father, and I envied him that.
"Think you can find another ride home, Jase?" I asked him.
"We can give him a ride," Rachel said, hand gripping mine, coming close enough that I could smell the scent of her shampoo and feel the brush of her breast against my arm and suddenly my mind was on something other than the war. She leaned in close and whispered to me: "Think you can get away after dinner?"
"I'll message you," I nodded, grinning broadly at the thought of sneaking into her bedroom as I had so many times over the last two years. Sometimes I wondered if her mom knew and just didn't care. Mrs. Lowenstein seemed...detached sometimes.
I said my goodbyes to Jase and the others, then went to find my four-wheeler. Maybe Jason was right about the war, or maybe my dad was, but life here wasn't going to stop either way, and I had to get back to work.
Chapter Four
I stared at the screen, my finger hovering above the "submit" button, chewing on the edge of my lip nervously.
"Just do it," Jason urged me, rolling his eyes. "For God's sake, you're not committing to anything, it's just an application."
"Don't blaspheme, man," I muttered absently. "You know I don't like it."
I sucked in a deep breath and touched "submit," and the form I'd filled out vanished from the screen and was replaced by a confirmation that my application to the Commonwealth Service Academy had been successfully submitted and that I could expect to hear a reply within fourteen Solar days. The breath escaped in a ragged sigh and I sat back heavily in the chair, turning it away from the Chen's decades-old entertainment center. Jason complained constantly that it wasn't a holotank like they'd had back on Earth, but at least he had a connection to the ComSats, which was more than any of the rest of us had.
"If Dad finds out about this," I lamented softly, "I'm dead."
"He won't kill you," Jason assured me, nudging my arm. "You guys are pacifists, right?"
I glared at him balefully. "I can't believe I let you talk me into this."
"Cal," he said pleadingly, his hands going up in frustration, "your test scores are higher than anyone else in our graduating class. You're wasting your time picking crops for your dad here on the ass-end of the Commonwealth!"
"What are your folks doing here then?" I retorted, waving around us.
The Chen's house was laid out differently than most of the others I'd been in anywhere around here. There was no family altar, for one thing, and of course they had the entertainment center with its large display screen mounted on one wall, with three smaller personal screens lower down for input. Swivel chairs were in front of each personal screen while a pair of comfortable couches were set back from the larger display.
The rest of the family room expanded backwards from there to where it split into the kitchen and dining room, and the walls were decorated with paintings Jason's mom had done by hand on canvas. They were pretty good, if I was any judge, and I knew she sold them offplanet.
"I can't help that my dad got assigned here," Jason answered a little defensively. "He goes where the Commonwealth Conservation Office sends him."
"Just because you're in such a hurry to get out of here doesn't mean I want to," I told him. "I like it here. Besides, why would I go to the Academy? What am I gonna' do in the military? I couldn't ever kill anyone, not even a Tahni."
"So, you go to the Scouts instead," he suggested with a shrug. "You get to look for new Transition lines, explore new planets, maybe find the Northwest Passage and get your name in the histories!" He waved a hand in front of me like a banner. "Captain Caleb Mitchell, first human to find the fabled Northwest Passage Transition line out of our Cluster!" He grinned at me. "Got a nice ring to it, huh?"
"That doesn't sound too bad," I admitted. I brightened. "And you know, if I do get into the Academy, they can't send me to war anyway until I graduate! No way this lasts four years, right?"
"I don't know about that," Jason admitted, sobering. "The first war with the Tahni lasted ten years, if you really want to say it ever ended."
"Only one other intelligent species out there that we know of," I lamented, "and we wind up fighting them."
"Hey, I'm as cynical as the next guy, but the Tahni aren't making it easy to be friendly. They think every habitable planet in the Cluster belongs to them, including any we humans might mistakenly think we have a right to live on." Jason got quiet for a moment and I thought his face looked worried. "Honest, Cal, this all scares the hell out of me. They killed half a million people just to make a point."
"I wish my dad realized that," I said. I rubbed at my hair with a palm, moaning softly. "Holy shit, Jason, I can't actually do this, can I? I mean, I'm just kidding myself, right? Dad will never let me go to the Academy."
"He doesn't have to let you do anything, you're old enough to choose for yourself." Jason's voice was firm and convincing. "Look at it this way: if the war fizzles out, you get a career with the Scouts or something and eventually your family will accept that."
"What if it doesn't fizzle out?" I asked.
"Then none of this." he waved a hand in the general direction of my house, "is going to matter. Trust me, Cal, if the war's still going on by the time you get out of the Academy, pissing off your dad is not going to be close to the top of your problems." He looked around carefully and I knew he was checking to make sure his parents weren't around before he used a word they didn't like. "We are all going to be totally fucked."
***
Night was coming. I felt the chill in the breeze, saw the shadows lengthening every time I was out in the fields, felt the pressure on everyone growing; we had to get the harvest in before the storms came and turned our carefully planned and configured crop patterns into so much wind-blown, frost-sheathed debris. I was spending nearly twelve hours at a time keeping the harvesters running, clearing jams in the feed chutes at the storage silos and getting the grain processing machinery ready to do its work once the crops were in.
None of that left much time to even see Rachel or hang out wi
th my friends, much less think about the war, the Academy or Jason's impending departure. I went to bed after every dinner exhausted and dreading my alarm going off. So, when I staggered back to my four-wheeler and headed back to the house for dinner two weeks later, I was caught completely by surprise when the message light on my 'link was blinking, and it was from Jason.
He was catching a hopper from Lebanon to Harristown in two hours, and flying a shuttle from there up to the freighter on the monthly cargo run to hitch a ride on the Fleet's ticket to the military training base on Inferno. He was leaving now.
Shit!
I gunned the four-wheeler's motor and spun it around on the service road, taking one hand off the control bars long enough to stick my 'link's earpiece in and hit the quick-connect for Mom. I knew better than to bother Dad with this right now; he was so keyed up about the harvest, he'd just as soon bite your head off as look at you.
"Is everything okay, Cal?" I heard her voice in my ear almost immediately, her tone slightly concerned. "Is your four-wheeler broken down again? I can send Abigail out to give you a ride home..."
"No, Mom," I broke in, talking louder to be heard over the wind whipping in my face, "I just wanted to let you know that I'll be late getting home. I have to go to Lebanon to say goodbye to Jason; his flight out is leaving in just a couple hours."
"Oh God...bless it," Mom said, and I fought back a laugh at the way she still had to struggle to watch her language after spending nearly thirty years in the Church. Mom's family ran a wholesale business in Harristown and weren't believers; she'd converted when she'd married Dad. "Your father won't be too happy about that," she warned him. "He wanted to have a family service after dinner to pray for the harvest."
"Tell him I'm sorry," I said, hissing out a breath, knowing he'd be pissed. "I'll be back as soon as I can. Love you, Mom."
"Love you too, Caleb," she said. "Give my best to Jason."
The ride to Lebanon seemed to take forever, and I was having crazy thoughts about not getting there in time, despite the fact that I knew it wasn't a two-hour trip. I still felt an intense relief when I saw the buildings popping up over the trees that separated the farmland from the town. Jason and his parents were still waiting in the depot, next to the flattened grass field where the public hoppers landed every twelve hours for flights to the city. I pulled the four-wheeler up next to them.
