Ark

96

August 2081

Helen and Jeb spent one last evening with the children, a normal routine at the end of a final day of chores and schooling. There was supper and cleanup, and a complicated zero-gravity basketball game for Mario with his father, and story-reading from his mother’s handheld for little Hundred.

Helen suspected that seven-year-old Mario knew what was going to happen, but if he did he was being brave for the sake of his little brother. Even Hundred wasn’t quite himself that evening, but he played gamely, and gurgled when he was tickled as he was dressed for bed. Then they all piled into the parents’ big sleeping bag, suspended across the interior of their cabin where it hung on the fireman’s pole, and Jeb and Helen held the children until they slept.

When they gently disentangled themselves, Mario stirred. He opened his big eyes and looked at his father, who was pulling on his T-shirt and shorts. He whispered, “Am I in charge now, Dad?”

“You’re in charge, big guy.”

Mario just smiled. “I’ll look after Hundred.”

Helen couldn’t bear anymore. She pushed out of the cabin into the dim light of the hull’s night watch.

Her mother was waiting outside. Grace looked gaunt, old. But she hugged her daughter. “I’ll go climb in with them,” she whispered. “So there’ll be somebody there when they wake.”

“Thanks,” Jeb said gruffly.

“It’s going to be strange for you, Mum,” Helen said.

Grace shrugged. “I was a hostage. Then I was a princess. Then I was an eye-dee, a walker. Then I was a sailor. Then an astronaut, and a doctor. Now I’ll be a grandmother, full time. I’ll adapt.” She released her daughter. “We’ve said all there is to say. Go now, it’s time.” She pulled herself inside the cabin.

Helen wasn’t crying; she seemed to have done all the crying she was ever going to do in the month since Holle had announced the split of the crew. But she couldn’t speak at all. Passively, she let Jeb take her arm and guide her up through the silent hull.

At the open hatch to shuttle B, the forty crew were being suited up. The older children, wide-eyed and subdued, helped sleepy youngsters into their suits. The lightweight pressure coveralls they were to wear during descent were just flimsy shells of polythene, enough to protect them if the cabin lost pressure. They had been stored in a locker for four decades, and, unusually aboard this battered old hulk, smelled new. They even had AxysCorp logos on their chests, cradled Earths. With spares there were plenty to go around, but they had been cut down to fit the smaller children, and turned into simple sacks to contain the very small ones. The shuttle launch had been timed for the night watch, when the children, drowsy with sleep, might be more easily handled. Perhaps they could be loaded aboard the shuttle and thrown down to the new world before they woke properly and realized they had lost their parents forever.

Helen, her mind blank, found her own suit, shook it out and pulled it on.

Venus and Holle approached. Holle looked tremendously sad, Venus frankly envious.

Holle said, “Wilson’s already aboard, checking over the systems. I-here.” She handed Helen a small stainless-steel sphere. It was a globe of Earth III, a product of the Ark’s machine shop. “We did the same at Earth II, I don’t know if you remember that. We put them in the kids’ packs; something for them to find. I wanted to give you yours personally.” Impulsively she hugged Helen. “I’m sorry I put you through this.”

Helen shoved her away. “You can never be sorry enough,” she said fiercely.

Holle just soaked this up, as she had soaked up all she had done for the sake of the crew, the mission, since the day she took over from Wilson. Maybe, in the end, that was Holle’s role, Helen thought, not leadership at all, just a receptacle for all the guilt at what had had to be done so the rest could survive. Nevertheless Helen felt a stab of renewed hatred.

Venus came forward and fussed over the seals on Helen’s suit. “Don’t forget, it will be damned cold down there. The next generation won’t notice, but you will. Wrap up before you crack that hatch.” She moved back, her eyes brimming. “Christ, I’ll miss you. You were the best student I ever had. Pass your learning on to the kids. You’re not to slip back to the fucking Neolithic, after coming all this way.”

“I will. What about you, Venus? What’s next?”

She glanced at Holle. “Well, we have a plan, of sorts. As soon as we pick up the beacon that says you’re safely down, we’ll send messages back by microwave laser to Earth, Earth II. Then, in a hundred years or so, anybody who’s listening will get the good news.

“Then we have this plan to go exploring the system of this M-sun.” She snapped her fingers, click, click. “Little bitty warp jumps, from planet to planet. Zane would have loved working all that out. We’ll send you back the results, surface maps, internal structures, whatever we find out. Keep that radio receiver functioning. It will be a legacy for the next generation, when they’re ready to go exploring, yeah?”

“And then?”

Venus spread her arms. “Hell, the sky is ours. We’ll just explore some more. Maybe we’ll find Earth IV and Earth V and Earth VI. We’ll laser back, we’ll tell you what we find. Or maybe we’ll come back and beat the light and tell you ourselves. Go,” she said, her voice suddenly gruff. “Go now before they close the damn hatch and leave you behind.”

Most of the kids were already aboard. Jeb glided through the hatch. There was no reason to stay. Helen swiveled in the air and dropped down herself, feet first. The pressure garment felt odd, too clean, and it rustled when she moved.

Once inside the shuttle, she looked back. Holle’s face, full of remorse and suffering, was the last she saw of the Ark. Then Venus closed the hatch.