Nightborn, page 2
Leo nodded. “Check the logs, look into that possibility. And any other geological concerns you can think of. God knows, there’ll be enough of them on this planet. And Johnny, look for any record of astronomical events in that time frame. Anything unusual—anything at all—I want to hear about it. The rest of you, I want you to go over the data the ship collected, each in your own field of expertise, looking for anomalies. Any anomalies.” He looked at the engineer. “Josh, you check out the ship itself. Make sure everything is functioning properly. And triple-check the landing module and the drop pods. We’ve been travelling far longer than anyone anticipated; I don’t want to take it for granted that everything is still in good working order.”
Joshua made a checkmark with his finger. “Will do, boss.”
Leo looked at Anna. “See if you can figure out why the ship’s decision-making algorithms stalled out for ninety years. Was there some event it didn’t know how to interpret? Or did the system perhaps degrade over time, so that data was corrupted? If you can rule anything out, at least that’ll be a start.”
She nodded. “On it.”
Leo drew in a deep breath. He looks so tired, Lise thought. How long had he stayed awake while the rest of them were asleep, trying to solve this riddle on his own before involving anyone else? In their two months of Orientation she’d learned enough about him to know that he didn’t admit defeat easily. He had been put in charge of the colony for its first year—the most challenging time for any exomigration—and she knew that he took the responsibility personally.
“Assuming we do wake everyone else up,” he said, “you nine will be my inner circle. I want you to report to me anything you see or hear that’s out of the ordinary. Even things that might seem too insignificant to bother mentioning.” He paused. “I don’t want to instill panic in two hundred people over a problem that may not exist. If someone raises the subject you can be honest about it, but don’t go out of your way to share my concerns. People will have enough to worry about without imaginary threats looming.”
“And me?” Dani asked. She cracked a weak smile. “What am I here for—to see to the spiritual health of the drop pods?”
Leo looked at her. “People will talk to you about their fears. Things they may not want to share with others.” He held up a hand to silence any protest. “I realize there will be issues of confidentiality. I trust you to decide what needs to be reported, and how to do so with appropriate discretion. But remember, this is the survival of the colony we’re talking about. If someone’s fears might reflect a real threat, I need to know about it.”
The chaplain nodded solemnly. “Understood.”
Leo looked out at the starscape again. For a moment he was silent, just drinking in the amazing view. The weight of his responsibility seemed to lift from his shoulders, simple awe taking its place. “It’s beautiful,” he murmured at last. “Isn’t it? A lush and fertile planet, unspoiled by humanity’s excesses, against a backdrop any vidmaker would covet. Exactly what we were hoping for. So what’s wrong with it, that made the ship uncertain about our landing here?”
He looked at the others. “Let’s try to figure it out before we wake all the others up.”
Normally Leon Case liked to be involved in everything—an active part of the team rather than a mere observer—but in this case it was best just to wait. His anxiety was too palpable, his scrutiny too intense. It would distract people from their work.
Out of two hundred people chosen for this colony, he had been identified as the one most qualified to lead. It was only a temporary position; the job of a colony commander was to oversee the first year of settlement, then surrender authority to whatever form of government the group chose. It was a daunting responsibility by any measure, and the process by which he’d been chosen was a mystery to him. But the people in charge of organizing this colony had decided that he was the best person for the job, and despite his initial wariness, they’d convinced him to take on the burden of leadership.
The weight of that burden was just hitting home.
On the screen was a magnified view of one of the rivers on the main continent, showing where it emptied into the sea. On any other planet he would have considered the land just upriver of that an ideal settlement site, with easy access to both fresh water and transportation. But the largest moon had just passed over that spot followed by a second moon roughly the same size as Earth’s, and their combined gravity had prompted a tidal wave that rushed upriver in a foaming torrent. Any settlement on those banks would need formidable levees, and transporting things by boat would be risky. Maybe that could work for them later on, once they were used to the tides of this planet, but it wasn’t a good location for starting out. He needed to look farther inland, preferably near some body of water that didn’t have direct outlet to the sea.
Regarding whatever issue had caused the seedship to delay their landing, all the efforts of his chosen team had told them nothing. The ship’s condition was fine. The algorithms evaluating the planet were working perfectly. There had been no geological event in the last ninety years which would contraindicate colonization. Maybe Tia was right, and the ship just wanted to observe the patterns of seismic activity for a while. There was no way to know.
His eyes narrowed as he studied the planet. What is your secret? he thought. Why could the ship not decide if you were a suitable home for us? Whatever the cause, he couldn’t delay a decision any longer. He’d told Lise to wake up her team first, then bring everyone else out of stasis.
But when she joined him to report on that effort, he could tell from her expression that it had not gone well. “Tell me,” he said.
She drew in a deep breath. “We lost sixteen. Complete bodily degradation. I couldn’t save them.”
Not WE couldn’t save them, he noted. Once she’d woken up her medical team it had been a joint effort to wake all the others, but she’d been in charge, and was clearly taking each death as her personal failure. He knew that feeling all too well. “What’s the failure rate?” He did the mental math. “Eight percent?”
“Should have been five,” she muttered. “Or less.”
“And this should have been a twenty-year journey. We’ve been asleep so long, we’re lucky we didn’t lose more people than that.” When she didn’t respond he reminded her, “No one has ever been in stasis this long before.”
She bit her lip, said nothing.
“Any issues with the ones who woke up?”
She shook her head. “They all seem to be mentally sound. For as much as it’s possible to tell at this point.”
“Well, that’s a blessing, anyway.” He looked out at the planet again. “We’ll need everyone functioning at full capacity.”
She pushed off from the rung to float to his side. “What about the drop pods? The cargo pods? The landing module?”
“I’m told everything’s good to go.”
“And . . .” She hesitated. “The other thing?”
He looked out at the planet again. “We’re not going to be able to figure it out from up here,” he muttered. “We’ll just have to go down there and see what’s what.”
She put a hand on his arm. “We knew this wouldn’t be easy, Leo. They warned us there would be problems no one could foresee.”
True enough, he thought solemnly. Earth had sent out many seedships to colonize distant worlds, but only four of those were close enough to Earth that their reports had come in before this ship left home. That was a pitifully small sampling and couldn’t possibly account for all the problems a newborn colony might face. But all four of those colonies had survived. He kept reminding himself of that. Whatever challenges those colonies had faced, they’d risen above them. His people would do the same.
What those four early reports had confirmed was that convergent evolution appeared to be a consistent phenomenon. Terran-style environments gave rise to Terran-style life-forms. Which mean that although elements of the local ecosystem might be alien to the colonists, the underlying blueprint of life should be similar enough to what they were used to that they could figure it out.
“We’ll be okay.” He rubbed his forehead with a weary hand.
She studied him for a moment, then asked gently, “How long were you out of stasis before you woke the rest of us, Leo?”
He said nothing.
“You look like you could use some real sleep.”
A dry smile twitched his lips. “A little busy for that.”
“If you don’t take care of yourself, how can you care for anyone else? The people who just woke up will need time to recover their full motor function before they can even think about facing natural gravity again. So no one is going anywhere right now.” She paused. “Get some sleep, Leo.”
He shut his eyes. “Lise, I’m not sure I can relax—”
“So hook your arm over a rung and try. That’s an order, Commander.” She smiled slightly. “I outrank you in medical matters, don’t forget that.”
He huffed. “Pulling rank on me. Nice.”
She shrugged. “A gal’s gotta do what she gotta do. So how about it?”
He sighed. “Let me find a suitable landing site first. Then I’ll give it a shot.”
“Promise?”
The concern in her eyes touched a part of his soul that had been closed off for too long. He longed to be able to return such feelings. Hopefully, leaving Earth would help make that possible again. He took her hand in his and squeezed it. “I promise.”
Black smoke rises into a murky sky, ash and smog clotting together, blotting out the sun. Leo adjusts his dust mask with a trembling hand. “Faster!” he orders. “Can’t you go faster?” But the cab has chosen its pace based on the speed and position of all the other vehicles on the four-tier roadway, and he can’t force it to take a riskier route. If only this were a more primitive time, when men controlled their own vehicles! He could dart in and out between the slower vehicles, then, maybe even drop beneath this tier entirely, claiming the narrow space between levels. A lot of people had crashed back then, trying such crazy things. But at least it was their choice to make.
Leo looks at his news feed again.
FIRE AT 432 MADISON NOW 92% CONTAINED. RESCUE TEAMS SEARCHING FOR SURVIVORS. 18 CONFIRMED DEAD, 11 INJURED. NO SURVIVORS YET FROM THE FIRST FLOOR REC CENTER, WHICH SUFFERED A DIRECT HIT. 35 CHILDREN WERE IN THAT PART OF THE BUILDING AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT.
“Hang in there, Julian,” he whispers hoarsely. “Daddy’s coming.”
If Leo hadn’t stayed late at work, none of this would be happening. Yes, he’d needed another hour to finish what he was doing, and yes, he’d checked with the rec center to make sure that was okay. They said it was fine—they didn’t close till eight, so Julian could stay as long as he needed. But if Leo had left work when he was originally supposed to, he and Julian would be safe at home, watching the fire on the news.
It’s Leo’s fault they were here instead, with him rushing to get to the site where his son might be lying in pain. Or worse.
His cab is getting close enough now that when they come around a bend he can see the disaster site. Several tiers of the expressway have collapsed, and the street below is a graveyard of overturned vehicles and shattered concrete. He can see where a car from a commuter train had come loose from its mag strip and hurtled into the ground floor of a building. How many people died in that crash? How many are still trapped in the wreckage? Rescue workers in bright orange hazard suits are swarming over the smoking rubble like insects; he tries to focus on them, tries not to think about what might have happened inside that building.
The sudden voice of the cab startles him. There is an accident ahead. The road to your chosen destination is closed. Do you wish to disembark, or should I calculate a detour?
“Disembark,” he says.
The cab pulls onto the shoulder, and its door slides open. The words HAVE A NICE DAY appear over the door as he climbs out.
There’s a drop tube nearby, and its glass-walled capsule takes him down to street level. Slowly, too slowly! The air there is soup-thick and abrasive, and even with his dust mask in place it’s hard to breathe. Heart pounding he races toward the accident site, fragments of glass crunching under his feet with each step. But the area immediately surrounding the building has been cordoned off, and he is brought up short. A man in uniform orders him to go back. No one is allowed on site except medics and the rescue team, Leo is told. He’s not the only one who has come this far, and other people are begging for access. Mothers, fathers, and friends all frantically begging to be allowed through, so they can search for the one person who really matters.
Unable to bear the intensity of their misery on top of his own, Leo backs away a bit, then looks for another way in. There has to be one! Suddenly the wind shifts, blowing a thick gust of smoke their way, and everyone is momentarily blinded. Opportunity! He staggers to the barrier by feel and manages to climb over it before the smoke clears. Then he is running, running desperately, coughing from the smoke that makes it past his dust mask, tears streaking the soot on his cheeks. “Julian!” he yells. It’s unlikely the boy can hear him over the noise of the rescue machinery, but he has to try. He’s getting close now, passing by rescue workers in bright orange uniforms. “Julian! Are you there?”
A hand falls on his shoulder, startling him. As he turns he braces himself for yet another demand that he leave, maybe even a forcible eviction. He’s not leaving without his son! But the man who stopped him evidently sees something in Leo’s eyes that moves him, and he points to a pair of tents at the far end of the site before disappearing into a cloud of smoke.
The tents are on the windward side of the disaster site, where the air is cleaner. As Leo approaches the larger tent he can see that it houses a temporary administrative center. They might know if his son has been found, and for a moment he is tempted to ask them, but if he just walks in and does so they will likely expel him from the site. Not worth the risk.
The second tent is quieter, and has no one guarding it. His stomach tightens in dread as he approaches it. He waits until no one is looking in his direction, then slips inside.
Bodies.
They’re laid out in parallel formation, shoulder to shoulder. Bloody bodies, broken bodies, bodies charred black by fire. So many of them! He sways as he looks at them, sick to his stomach. He wants more than anything to turn away, to leave this place, but that’s not an option.
He sees his son.
With a cry of anguish Leo rushes to Julian’s body and falls to his knees beside it. Tears are flowing freely now as he lifts up the broken form and cradles it in his arms, pressing it against him as if he could will his own life-force into its flesh. “I’m sorry.” His voice is a hoarse whisper, robbed of all strength. “I’m so sorry. I should have been here earlier. I should have protected you.” He lowers his face to the boy’s shoulder and sobs. “I failed you.”
There are other people entering the tent now, but he hears them as if from a great distance. A woman says that he shouldn’t be there. A man says that he needs to leave. But they are ghost voices, lacking the power to affect him. Nothing matters in the universe other than the small broken body in his arms. The little boy who had been, up until moments ago, the most important person in Leo’s life.
Gone now.
Gone forever.
His fault.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers through his tears. “So sorry . . . . ”
The drop pods fell to the planet like great white birds, gentled by parachutes that spread out above them like wings, carrying the colonists safely downward. Most of them landed in the target area, and those that went astray were not too far off; by nightfall it should be possible to get them all positioned properly. The cargo pods weren’t as well guided, and some landed off target by several miles. But those could be retrieved later.
One by one hatches unsealed and people began to spill out of them, into the alien sunshine. They laughed as they did so and hugged one another, and some fell to the ground and kissed it, while a couple of people even danced. And why not? They had traveled to the edge of the galaxy in the hopes of finding a new world to inhabit. The one they had found was fresh and green and beautiful. The sky was so clean and clear that one could see miles into the distance—incredible! And the air was as fresh and sweet as it had been in Orientation, but on this world they would never have to give it up.
But there were a few people who stood apart from the giddy celebration, for they had lost loved ones coming out of stasis and were still reeling from the shock of it. Yes, they’d all known when they left Earth that some people would die en route, but people always imagined that would happen to someone else. The discovery that a loved one had lost that deadly lottery was just sinking in.
Tia’s partner had been one of the casualties.
Leo and some members of his team stood on a low hill overlooking the landing site. They’d come down before all the others to verify the suitability of his chosen area, and had judged it perfect. Sprawling grasslands to the north, granite bluffs to the south, forests with mountains beyond them and a river close enough to supply the colonists with water—but not in a position where flooding would be an issue. A mile away from where the drop pods had landed was the granite plateau Leo had earmarked for the module. Solid ground with no visible fault lines. Everything looked promising, but not until all vessels were safely on the ground would Leo allow himself to relax.
Lise pointed up into the sky, raising up a hand to shield her eyes from the bright alien sun. “Is that it?”
Leo turned his attention upward, squinting as he tried to make out details of the small black dot that was slowly descending from the sky. That dot contained specialized supplies that they would need to conquer this new world: laboratories with high-tech equipment, a database with all the information a colony could possibly need, and—most important of all—10,000 DNA samples preserved in stasis. Hopefully that would provide enough genetic diversity to establish a healthy population. There were backup samples in the drop pods as well—DNA was too valuable to entrust to a single vehicle—but the bulk of the supply was inside the module.
