by Kate Rauner
Drew jerked his head up. "Wait a minute. You're telling me we don't have enough food?"
Maliah's golden forehead wrinkled in confusion. "Enough food for what?"
"Enough for... Well, I don't know. The mission we hijacked was supposed to rotate crews every five years. How long will we be here?"
"Forever. Don't you get it? This is our world now. The Kin's world. No one's going back to Earth."
Drew turned pale and his throat convulsed.
Fynn grabbed his arm. "You okay?"
He choked out a shaky laugh.
Fynn turned wide eyes to his sister. "Seriously? We're never going home?"
"Are you guys trying to annoy me? That's what a colony is - permanent. The Herschel is a colony ship. Like I told you."
Drew's eyes bulged and he grabbed his water glass.
"No way you can ruin my mood." Maliah pointedly turned her back on Drew and faced Fynn. "You found your assignment? And your instructions? Does everything look good?"
Fynn was numb and muttered in a flat tone, keeping his eyes focused on the table. "Yeah. I see exactly what I need to do."
Maliah bounced in her chair. "Me, too. I found all my bins and nothing's damaged. As soon as Dad has the ground floor of the tower built, I can move the servers in. I should have our cybernet running before he finishes assembling the barracks. Then we'll have a comfy bivouac."
Drew continued to stare into his spaghetti as he talked. "Suppose we go on strike? Refuse to assemble your comfy bivouac?"
"You won't. What would be the point?"
Drew looked up hopefully, his eyes darting from Maliah to Fynn. "Maybe none of this is real. If it weren't for the gravity, we could be anywhere. The medics drugged us. Maybe that's why I feel floaty. This could be a barracks exercise. Remember?" He rapped Fynn's arm. "Remember the winter camping trip? No warning. They woke us before dawn." He laughed weakly and shook his head. "I've never been so cold in my life. But we survived and then we went home."
Maliah rubbed Drew's back. "I'm sorry. It's a lot to take in and I forget you've only know about the colony for a day. A day of consciousness, that is. You'll feel better soon."
She pointed to Fynn's sleeve pad. "Find your manifests for the combustion plant. There's something exciting in there."
Fynn tapped through schedule bars and there, after links to installation videos, were pages of text. Below the power plant equipment, he found what Maliah meant and read out loud. "Surface suits and fliers." Fynn raised his eyebrows. "So we get to go outside and see what Titan looks like. And... fly?"
Maliah smiled, her amber eyes gleaming. "Low gravity and dense air means, yeah. We're gonna fly."
Fynn couldn't think of anything to say. His high-tech coveralls were clammy and his hand trembled as he spooned up some chili. He could barely swallow past the hard lump in his throat. Maybe the fear would pass if he concentrated on the fliers. Whatever those were, they sounded like fun.
***
Their work began the next morning after a maple-sausage patty breakfast, when they broke up into crews. Three medics joined his mother, two cyber specialists followed Maliah to her bins, and most of the others went with his father.
Fynn faced Drew plus six other Kin. This was his crew, and he knew them. Like most of the Advance Team, they were within ten years of his age. Apparently, youth was a plus for setting up the dome's systems. Even if he'd never shared a classroom with some of the people patiently watching him, they'd all played sports together at one time or another.
Fynn took a deep breath, double-checked his flat pad, and led them to a robot. "This stevedore is assigned to our crew."
The bot's waist-thick column sat on a wheeled base. Outrigger appendages folded into each side, and four telescoping arms were strapped tightly to the column.
"Until the cybernet's active, the robot has to be operated remotely. Any of you familiar with the controls?"
"Me." Rica Ness stepped to the bot, flipped open a panel, and unclipped the manual control pad. "I've got over forty hours of training on this stevedore model. I'll do it. If that's okay with you." She wasn't asking a question.
"We need to put all the large pieces of equipment in place. My fath..." Fynn interrupted himself and consulted his pad to hide a moment of confusion. Everyone would have noticed his family was in charge of the crews, but it didn't seem wise to emphasize the fact.
It made sense to call his father by name in front of the group, just like anyone else he worked with. Fynn cleared his throat. "Yash's crew is assembling the clinic and tower first, but once they start on the barracks, in front of our recycling system, we'll have to work around them. My job is to keep in touch with them and make sure we coordinate our efforts. But you've all seen the assignment, right? And the installation instructions? So no one needs me to tell them what to do."
Casper, a square-jawed guy a year or two younger, raised his hand. "I was a procurement agent, and no one taught me anything about this." He waved at the tanks, wide-eyed and shaky.
Drew stepped next to Casper. "We'll watch the video for installing the system, me and Casper, and then start moving Tank A into place. Okay?"
"Great." Fynn raised his eyebrows to Drew in a fleeting, thankful expression before turning his pad to the crew. "Find your installation videos and don't skip the safety reminders. Tanks may not weigh much in low gravity, but mass times velocity still equals momentum, so don't get crushed."
The others paired up to claim tanks while Rica stood by the stevedore. "Help me unpack the bot," she said. She opened another panel in the robot's base to reveal a compartment full of hand tools. She and Fynn began cutting straps around the stevedore's column.
Rica wore her hair the way Fynn remembered from school, short and curly. And bright pink. She'd ignored a lot of teasing, since girls usually wore long hair pulled into braids or ponytails. In Titan's low gravity, the short cut bounced prettily around her face. But her expression was as serious as ever, so Fynn bent over his work.
"The structure crew has a stevedore too," he said. "We can borrow it if two robots are needed to upend the tanks."
"Oh, I think I'll be fine with this one." Rica answered without taking her eyes off the bot. "Everything in the dome is designed to be easy, like a giant erector set."
***
Fynn lay on his back, staring at the barracks' ceiling. Each unit had one door, thirteen beds, and an attached washroom. Except for following the curve of the dome, the barracks were laid out like the Kin compound on Earth. Another difference was construction. Plastic struts and panels were slotted and snapped together, just like all the dome buildings. With no summer heat or winter cold to worry about, the panels were thin. Fynn sniffed. He was getting used to the smell of plastic.
The three rows of men's barracks reached a quarter the way around the dome and sat directly in front of the air and water recycling systems. Across the dome, on the other side of the central tower, identical units held the women's quarters with their recycling systems. Enough beds for over four hundred colonists eventually, but the Advance Team took advantage of the space and spread out.
Fynn and Drew had a unit to themselves. They both changed out of their clammy Ever-Clean coveralls into the jeans and shirts they'd worn on the space plane.
"Whoever designed this place got the color right," Fynn said when Drew returned from the washroom. "Mint green, just like at home."
"I never liked the shade, but it's better than the primary colors on the outside."
"They're not all primary colors. There's orange, green..."
Drew harrumphed. "All bright as a kindergarten playroom." He unfastened the walking brace on his left foot. Greta said he was likely to regain some feeling and until then the boot, intended for a broken ankle, gave him stability. "First night in a new barracks. This brings back memories. Say, once the Herschel's turned into a space station and I'm living up there, I'll be close to the 3-D printers. What should I make for you? How about a copy of that science fair
trophy you kept under your bed forever?"
"That's kids' stuff." But Fynn wondered where the trophy was now. Maybe his grandparents kept it. If Maliah really had downloaded his cloud files, he had pictures of his university room. Maybe Drew could reproduce a poster or his toy heat-engine Dippy Bird that bobbed up and down to a glass of water. Classical thermodynamics. "Drew, what would you want from Earth?"
"What I want is to be on Earth." He plucked at the tip of his mustache. "What makes them think they can drag me to Titan for the rest of my life?"
"It's not like there's anything you can do about it."
Drew flopped onto his back. "It's easy for you to accept. Your family's with you."
"What about your parents? There's a list of passengers..."
"Hardly matters. I never visited them on Earth. Why would Titan be any different?"
Fynn tried for a soothing tone. "Then nothing's changed. It's you and me, and Maliah. My parents like you too."
Drew reached across the narrow space between their beds and rapped Fynn on the shoulder. "Yeah. Well, goodnight." He often cut conversations short, and even on Titan, he could fall asleep in an instant.
Drowsing on his thin, narrow mattress, Fynn remembered his own first night in barracks. On his seventh birthday, instead of being released from class to go home, his teacher had delivered him to the boys' barrack chief. It should have been a proud moment. Children belonged to the Kin, not to their parents. To be raised in a barracks was to grow up proud, strong, and disciplined.
He'd waited outside the door while the rest of his unit washed up before an afternoon of javelin practice. Across the playing fields stood rows of small cottages where couples lived. Most returned to the barracks when their children left, but his mother a medical doctor, so she was allowed to keep their cottage. Fynn could see home. He ran.
His mother scolded him before handing him to his father, who walked him back to the barracks. "The boy was comforting his mother," Yash said when the barrack chief took Fynn roughly by the collar. He'd been confused at the time, because Mom hadn't even given him a hug. Years later Fynn realized that, by covering for him, Yash saved him from punishment.
Then Yash had knelt to whisper in his ear. "You're a big boy now. Don't embarrass me."
As he lay in this new, plastic barracks, Fynn remembered the disappointment in his father's broad face back then. Instead of trickling down, tears spread across his cheeks, spread to a sheen by the low gravity. Fynn blinked hard to clear his vision and wiped his face. His seventh birthday was far in the past. He always made his father proud after that day. He'd make him proud on Titan, too.
***
Maliah bounced on her toes as she waited for the shuttle to dock. Her fidgeting probably irritated her father, who stood next to her, but she couldn't help it. The Kin's First Cohort, Doctor Tanaka was arriving with his adjuncts.
The airlock door swung open and Shun Ito stepped out. He was one of the few Samurai among the Kin, a generation older than Maliah, tall and muscular. All the adjuncts were notably athletic since they were bodyguards as well as assistants.
Shun nodded curtly to Yash. "Is everyone assembled?"
Yash returned the nod. "Waiting in the mess hall, as you requested."
Maj Krog exited the airlock. She was a Viking with hair gathered in a blond braid streaked with silver. Trina, the youngest adjunct came next, but Maliah focused on the doorway, waiting.
Doctor Tanaka came into view, one hand on each side of the hatch frame as he stepped over the lip.
His wiry frame was unchanged since she'd seen him last. Bald, with a neatly trimmed white beard, he seemed grandfatherly. Tanaka was probably one of the oldest Kin to make the trip, and Maliah looked anxiously for aftereffects from stasis. He moved slowly and Maj supported him, but any unsteadiness was easily explained by Titan's low gravity.
"Doctor Rupar." Tanaka extended his hand to Maliah's father. "I see you've completed the dome's interior assembly on schedule. Splendid."
"Welcome to Titan, Doctor Tanaka. The stevedores will transport your cargo."
Both robots stood passively behind them, their various limbs folded snuggly into grooves on their bodies, waiting for people to move safely out of the way.
"Is the cybernet interface operational?" Tanaka asked. When Yash nodded, he turned to smile at Maliah. "Thanks to our cyber expert, I'm sure."
Maliah, breathless, felt tears fill her eyes and blur her vision. "Welcome to Titan," was all she could think to say.
Half the dome, called the playing field in memory of the Kin's earthly compound, lay in front of them, floored with a textured gray plastic. The walls of the dome were lighted now and their blue color matched the clear mountain skies Kin had left behind. Bins with spare parts and tools or ready to collect packaging sat against the barracks, but the floor was mostly clear. Over the past week, the stevedores had moved empty bins and pallets out through the airlock, passing them to their larger robotic counterparts on the surface for storage in a lay-down zone.
Yash pointed out the medical clinic to the left and the men's barracks to the right. Purple barracks were closest to the dock. Like oversized toys, each unit in the row was brightly colored, marching down the rainbow from purple to blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. It was the same in all the barracks rows. Her mother's clinic was a soothing baby-blue, and the dome's central tower was deep cobalt.
Maliah hadn't read all the psychological reports, but knew bright hues were supposed to compensate for the lack of color on Titan's surface. Solid white domes might become depressing. The vendors had overdone it, but Doctor Tanaka seemed to approve. He was smiling.
They approached the central structure, which rose four stories to the dome's ceiling with a spiral staircase winding through the balconies. "I understand you'd like to address the team from the tower," Yash said.
"Yes," Tanaka said. "I want to be able to see everyone, to congratulate them."
He climbed the stairs with his adjuncts, and Maliah followed her father around the tower to the mess hall. The kitchen was clean, bright white, with beige mess hall tables and light gray chairs. She was glad she didn't have to eat in a kindergarten cafeteria of colors.
The Advance Team sat together at three front-row tables. Kin buzzed with excitement, and people repeatedly looked up at the narrow tower balconies circling the second and top floors. A galley kitchen roofed with filter hoods sat against the deep blue tower with a row of base cabinets in front, so they had a clear view from the tables.
Maliah took an empty seat next to Fynn and dug her fingers into his arm. "Here he comes."
Above them, Shun and Maj tied a green banner to the top balcony's railing. Tanaka stepped into view and cheering reverberated through the dome. People stood and waved or pumped fists overhead.
At last, Tanaka raised both hands and the team instantly fell silent.
"I salute you." He voice carried across the dome, above the team's heads. "You are the first Kin on Titan. Explorers and conquerors. Since history began in the Indus Valley, the origin of civilization, we have been the true humans. Over centuries, lesser societies grew around us, devolved and debased peoples that threatened to consume us. But our historic destiny has arrived. Titan will be our creation, designed for ourselves and our posterity. From our beginnings in Earth's Bronze Age, we arrive at our Golden Age on Titan."
Tanaka dropped one hand to the railing and the green banner turned orange. From green Earth to orange moon. The team leaped up again, cheers expanding to roars. Tanaka raised a fist overhead and led the chant. "Kin, Kin, Kin." Chairs toppled as people moved to the aisle between tables. "Kin, Kin, Kin."
Maliah pushed her way into line with the others, to lock arms and leap high, higher than earthly gravity ever allowed. High enough to arch her back, raise her face to Tanaka, and drift down on pointed toes. Strong, proud, and beautiful. Kin.
Chapter 5
Y ash moved to the outskirts of the crowd, and as usual Greta stayed beside h
im. Doctor Tanaka withdrew inside the tower a short time after the team's rally morphed into a stomping, military style march-in-place.
Greta stared at the empty balcony, perhaps hoping for another glimpse of the First Cohort. "If you were planning to talk business with Tanaka, I advise you to wait a day or two."
Yash's black eyes sparkled. "You always could read my mind. Let me talk business with you, then, and with Fynn."
"It'll be quieter in the clinic," Greta said. They passed the women's barracks to a square, single story structure that housed the medical clinic. "Someone was kind enough to install sound-proofing in these walls. Thinking about patients needing rest, I suppose, but I'm glad to have it today."
Yash hadn't been inside since his crew finished assembling the building. He was pleased to see beds and equipment arranged like Greta's clinic in the compound on Earth. Exam and treatment rooms occupied most of the building, with tiny individual quarters for the medics and Greta's office down a narrow hall.
One difference from Earth was the shelf of emergency supplies. Here on Titan, small oxygen cylinders and insulated suits stood ready in the hallway for medics to grab. If deadly atmosphere breached a dome, they could rescue people. Yash paused for a moment. He was fully aware of the equipment's limitations. A large leak would kill them.
Yash shook his head. Worrying wouldn't change the situation, and there was no reason for a dome to leak in the next several years. More urgent concerns crowded his mind, and he followed Greta to her office.
Greta ignored her desk to sit on a short inflated sofa. Fynn joined her and Yash sat across a low table in one of the chairs. Striped blue fabric covered the furniture and, like almost everything they brought to Titan, it was woven of plastic. Plastic could be manufactured from Titan's abundant hydrocarbon lakes, and eventually everything would need to be repaired or replaced.
