He stood up, his eyes drinking in the sight of her body. Her lips parted, and he knew she understood that once more she was in control. The thought sent a shiver down his spine, and he closed his eyes for a moment, enjoying the anticipation.
“Hurry,” she prompted, and he saw no reason not to.
CHAPTER FIVE
The day the Inspiration arrived dawned bright and clear, the golden rays of Tau Ceti slanting in through the immense windows that sealed the mouth of the cavern.
David called John over from where he was working on the cluster of small townhouses taking shape on the northeast side of Solar Park. The houses they had already assembled lay between this new development and their own. These first four now all sported an extra bedroom, tacked on to accommodate larger families.
John greeted David with a smile. “How’s it going, mate?”
“Good. How’s progress?”
“We’re about halfway there with the buildings. It’s the finishing inside that takes time, but we’ll have something by next week.”
David nodded. “Good. Can the others cope without you for an hour?”
“Well, I’d like to say it wouldn’t slow us down, but …”
“I know. But something’s come up.”
John raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
David nodded. “I’ve just received a surprising request from our friend Harper.”
“Hmmm.” John rubbed his chin. “Four hectares for a landing field? That’s a bit of a problem.”
David nodded, visualizing four football fields plus change. “I guess we can’t use our old landing area?”
“Not a chance. It’s too small. Besides, there’s a river running through it now.” John meant the artificial River Haven they’d created that ran through their cavern and down past their old landing field to Lake Cartier.
“So, where?”
“Well, the best place would be here.” John pointed to a large area on the map he’d called up on his data pad. “It’s quite a hike from there to Haven, though, over three klicks to the northwest. We’d need to provide transport.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem. The shuttle can take sixty if we strip it back, as long as they don’t mind sitting on the floor.”
John grinned. “Well, it’s either that or they’ll have to walk. Why do they want so much space, anyway?”
“They’ve got five landers, no shuttle, and they want to land them all at once. Something about power requirements.”
John raised his eyebrows. “That sounds risky.”
“Harper says they built stasis chambers into the landers. Because of the weight, they’re short on power and need to land quickly.”
“And you believe him?”
David exchanged a glance with John. “We’ve no reason to think he’s lying. But you’re right, it doesn’t ring true.”
John shook his head. “I don’t have a good feeling about this.”
“Me neither. I wish I did, but there are too many unknowns.”
“So what do we do?”
“For now, continue to prepare, and that includes grading the field,” David replied. “Also, we’ll need landing transponders.”
John nodded. “If it’s OK with you, I’ll take Mia on the grading job and have Heidi work out the transponders with Élise. It’ll be good experience for them.”
“Won’t that slow down the building some?”
John shrugged and smiled. “I don’t think a week of camping will hurt our new friends, do you?”
David returned his smile. “I doubt anyone could regard camping in Haven as unpleasant – no mosquitos, and it only rains when we want it to!”
The sun had sunk in the west when the council of the first eight gathered to discuss the impending landings. Often their evenings would be spent at the park, relaxing with their families after a drawn-out dinner. Tonight, they’d left the younger children in the care of the elder, and convened a meeting behind closed doors, much to the disgust of their teenagers.
David opened proceedings. “How are our preparations going?” he asked.
“We’ll be able to put thirty of them in houses,” John said, “provided they don’t mind sharing between families. Assuming they are families, that is.”
“Which we don’t know,” Veronika added.
“What do we know?” Nigel asked. “Apart from there’ll be a hundred of them?”
“Nothing, other than Edward Harper and Carla Lewis will be two of that hundred,” David replied with a frown.
“Why don’t we know more?” John asked.
David shook his head. “No good reason. Harper gave us a story about the manifest being scrambled because they had to leave in a hurry and they weren’t sure who made it. He told us each lander is a stasis chamber, and they didn’t want to risk shutting down the stasis field to check.”
“I suppose that’s possible …” Grace ventured.
John snorted. “Yeah, and I’ve got some land at the bottom of Crater Lake for sale.”
David looked around the table. “Until we know otherwise, we’ll assume their good intent. But we need to prepare in case we’re wrong.”
He turned to John. “After you finish grading the landing field, I have another task for you and Grace …”
“Edward!”
Edward looked up, cases arranged around him as if he were packing for a holiday. “Yes?”
Carla stopped, hand on hip, and surveyed the scene. “Almost ready to go, I see.”
“Are you?”
“Oh, I’m packed,” she said with a smile. “I’ve packed everything you need.”
Edward’s eyes dropped for a moment, and Carla’s smile broadened.
“Why don’t you move our bags down to the cargo hold. There’s something I need to do first.” She turned on one heel and made to leave.
“Carla?”
She stopped and looked back over one shoulder.
“Yes, Edward?”
“What about the pilot?”
“That’s the thing.”
No one got to sleep late, as every child in Haven woke as early as if it were Christmas morning. But there were no gifts waiting for them under the Christmas tree that grew in the park. Or maybe there will be, thought David with a smile, remembering the teenagers’ ingenious theory to explain the newcomers’ silence. Or as John says, there might be a surprise, but not one we should look forward to.
He gave himself a mental shake. Let’s keep our glass half-full, shall we?
They all had breakfast at the park, grilling ham and eggs on the barbecues and slicing fresh-baked bread.
“Can we come watch?” Joyce asked, for the hundredth time that morning. Until now the answer had been “no”, but this time David stole a glance at Grace, who widened her eyes for the briefest of moments.
“Mom? Can we?” Joyce begged. David watched the other children gathering like sharks sensing blood in the water. Somehow, teenagers always knew when their parents’ defenses started to crumble. He shot another questioning look at Grace.
She sighed. “When will they ever get a chance to see this again?”
Every head swiveled to David. They’d stitched him up. They’d gotten to Grace already and now were manipulating him into giving them the answer they wanted. He frowned, wavering.
“Please?”
“Well,” he said, “you’d have to stay clear of the …”
A chorus of cheers cut his words short. He looked again at Grace. She shrugged and laughed.
Carla strode onto the bridge, wearing her trademark black once more.
“Joyce.”
Joyce was sitting at the pilot’s station, preparing for the lander descent. “Yes?”
“It’s time to go. Are you ready?”
Joyce nodded. “The landers are all active. Their flight computers are updating in real time. We only need to give the command. They’ve all reported they can see the transponder signals.”
“Good. There’s just one more thing.”
Joyce frowned. They’d done everything – what else did she want? They should now be reviving Vasily, Viktor, and Natalia.
Carla stepped closer, the familiar click, click of her boots sounding their steady cadence, stirring dark memories in Joyce’s mind.
Carla smiled, but the expression in her eyes was flat and hard. “Take us down. Drop our orbit to three hundred kilometers.”
Joyce stared at her. “That … would be unsafe for this world. The ship’s orbit could decay in a matter of weeks.”
Carla walked behind her, trailing a finger across the back of Joyce’s chair. “I know. It’s only temporary, until we launch the landers. Then we’ll raise the ship to a parking orbit.”
Joyce pressed her lips together. “But the Hope released its landers from five hundred kilometers. Why do we need to go so low?”
Carla turned and glared at Joyce. “This isn’t the Hope. Our landers are heavier; they have less fuel. Now take us down.”
Joyce frowned, but knew she couldn’t refuse. “Temporarily, right?”
“As I said. I’m assuming we can raise the orbit again remotely?”
Joyce nodded, her face relaxing. “Yes, of course.”
Carla sat down and crossed her legs. “Excellent. Now make it so.”
“I’ll need authorization.”
Carla said nothing but leaned forward and pushed a button on the console.
“Identify,” the computer said in a flat, expressionless voice.
“Carla Lewis – foxtrot, lima, niner, alpha, alpha, one, zero.”
“Identity confirmed. Navigation and pilot controls active.”
Joyce turned to her control panel. She tried to convince herself Carla was telling the truth, but that smile of hers sent shivers down her spine.
Within moments, the ship’s drives woke again and Carla could feel the acceleration pressing her into her seat. The ship had divested itself of most of its fuel, and hence its mass, and could accelerate at a quarter of a gravity. It took half an hour and two separate burns to complete the job. Joyce sat back and looked at Carla. “It’s done.” The curve of the blue world beneath filled their screen.
“Now reprogram the landers,” Carla said.
Joyce glanced at her control panel and then turned back to Carla. “There’s no need. They’ve been tracking in real time, and they’re still ready to go.”
“Excellent.”
Joyce pursed her lips for a moment. “Now what?” she asked.
“Now?” Carla replied. “Why, now it’s time to see Vasily.” She stood and invited Joyce to go first.
Joyce’s brow wrinkled for a moment, then she pulled herself out of her chair and headed toward the stasis suite.
While Carla was seeing to Joyce, Edward had been acting as a bellhop, taking their bags to the lander in which they would descend to the surface.
The five landers were almost identical. In size they were the same as the Hope’s, the difference being they contained very little cargo. Their mass was all in the passengers, the stasis chambers that held them frozen in time, and their baggage allowance of twenty kilograms per person.
He and Carla had an extra allowance, and it was this he was herding down the central access tube when the ship accelerated. Edward rarely cursed, but he had one to offer this time as he and the bags drifted toward the rear of the ship. There was only fifteen meters to fall at a quarter of a gravity, but it caused him to make a frantic grab for a handhold. The bags fell with a clatter against the bulkhead separating the living quarters from the cargo hold. He frowned. He’d be having words with Carla about this later.
The pearlescent glow of the walls and ceiling followed them with a broad swath of light as they walked, an effect Joyce didn’t care for. It made the curved corridor seem endless. She felt like she was in a dream where she kept walking and walking but could never reach her destination. She felt as if she should run, but couldn’t shake the feeling that if she did, she’d find herself unable to get away, her legs heavy and mired in clay.
The stasis chamber welcomed them with brightening lights as they entered the hatch. Joyce glanced behind. Carla stood there, watching her like a cat stalking a mouse. She straightened her shoulders and walked to Vasily’s chamber, then turned back to ask for the authorization code.
Carla wore a thin-lipped smile. She held the flat little tranquilizer pistol in her right hand again. Joyce’s mouth formed an “O”, fading as she realized this shouldn’t be a surprise at all. The gun snapped once. A small dart buried itself in Joyce’s midriff, and her hand fled to the point of impact. She felt dizzy already and looked to Carla in desperation.
“The ship! You must raise the orbit!”
Carla stepped closer, maintaining eye contact as Joyce sank to the floor. A smile twisted her thin lips. “Oh, I don’t think we’ll be doing that …”
Joyce’s vision was contracting, blackness rushing in from all sides. The last thing she heard was Carla’s final word: “… ever.”
Edward entered the room to find Carla with one boot on Joyce’s chest, pistol in hand.
“What,” he asked, “is going on?”
Carla turned and looked at him, beaming her most radiant smile. “You’re just in time. Help me get her into this chamber.”
“First, I want to know why the ship was accelerating, while I might add I was moving our bags down to the cargo hold. Second, I want to know why you felt the need to shoot our navigator.”
Carla looked at Joyce, lying slumped on the ground. “She wouldn’t go into stasis. You knew that could happen and how we would handle it. It’s not as if there’s room for them in the landers, and we could hardly leave them running loose in the ship.”
Edward conceded the point with a tilt of his head.
“As for the maneuvers – that was deceleration, not acceleration. We dropped to a lower orbit.”
“Why? We don’t need to.”
Carla sauntered over to Edward and smiled as she traced a line down his chest with the muzzle of the gun. “I had our safety in mind, my love. At this altitude we won’t need as much fuel. It never hurts to have a reserve.”
Edward didn’t look convinced.
The gun clattered to the floor as Carla grabbed Edward by the front of his ship suit and pulled him in for a kiss, teasing his lips with her tongue.
“It’ll take time for the ship to spin down,” she whispered. “Why don’t we use that?”
CHAPTER SIX
David ran one hand along the top of the front row of seats, lost in memories. He looked up as John entered the shuttle.
“The old girl’s seen better days, huh?”
“She’s still good,” David said, crossing his arms.
Their shuttle was sixty-five years old – unlike them, it hadn’t enjoyed the benefits of being transported from Earth in a stasis chamber.
“Oh, she’s sound enough,” John said. David knew he and Heidi had maintained her well over the years. “But we haven’t paid much attention to the interior.”
That was true – there were eight rows of seats, four to each row, covered with faded and stained fabric. The first two rows, the originals, looked worse than the newer ones they’d added as the colony grew. Countless cargo runs, sometimes with mining ore and other rough objects, had scratched and scraped the plastic deck.
David grinned. “I’m sure they won’t mind. It beats walking at any rate.”
The schedule called for the Inspiration’s landers to separate from their mother ship in a little under an hour. They would leave at fifteen-minute intervals, and enter the atmosphere forty minutes later, one after the other.
John looked thoughtful. “It won’t be the same, will it? No matter what they’re like.”
David shook his head. “They outnumber us three to one,” he said. “That has to have a huge impact.”
“The kids will feel it.”
David nodded. “They’ve only known family and friends; they don’t know what other people ca
n be like.” He slapped John on the shoulder. “But don’t worry, we’ll figure something out. Once they see what life’s like here, and realize they can stop worrying about Earth’s problems, they’ll fit right in. You’ll see.”
“Sure,” John said. “We’ll see.”
To enter the lander, Edward and Carla first had to disengage the stasis field, which had been in continuous operation ever since the Inspiration departed Earth over three decades ago.
They floated just outside the open hatch leading to the top of the lander. Looking down, Edward could see eighteen people arranged in four rows of five seats. Two seats were empty, waiting for him and Carla.
“Ship,” Edward said, “disengage the stasis field in Lander One. Authorization: Harper – alpha, one, niner, six, three.”
There was a brief pause before the computer responded.
“Stasis field disengaged.”
Stasis field generators had advanced since the first-generation technology the Hope carried. They were now lighter and more versatile and drew less power. The electric-shock sensation caused by a collapsing field hadn’t changed, however. Gasps and curses from below told Edward the exact moment the inhabitants rejoined the living.
“What happened? Are we there already? Where are we?”
Edward knew their minds would still be on the mad rush to lift off Earth or travel from the Moon or one of the orbital stations, to get to the Inspiration before everything went to hell. For them, no time had passed since then.
“Everyone! Listen!” he said. “Please be calm and stay secured in your seats.”
He pulled himself into the capsule and floated above the rows of passengers. Behind him, Carla herded their baggage inside, cramming it into lockers reserved for that purpose.
“I’m very pleased,” Edward continued, “to tell you we’ve arrived at Tau Ceti.”
The Seasoning Page 4
