Earth unaware

CHAPTER 15

Warnings

Victor gathered with the Council in the fuge two days later after a search for more survivors proved unsuccessful. He had hoped to accompany the search party to look for Janda, but Concepcion had asked him and Father to comb through the wreckage for salvageable parts instead. It was a long shot, but if Victor and Father could find enough parts to build a laserline transmitter, they could restore the ship’s long-range communication. Father had said that finding what they needed would be like finding needles in a haystack that had been ripped to shreds and strewn across a county mile, but he agreed to look nonetheless. When he and Victor came up empty-handed, Concepcion convened the Council meeting.

The nine Italian survivors who had been trapped in the wreckage were in attendance. They stood huddled together off to one side, the horror of their ordeal still evident on their faces. None of them had been terribly injured in the pod attack, but they looked like broken people nonetheless. Weeks ago, when the Italians had docked with El Cavador, the Italians had been full of song and laughter and life. Now they were like ghosts of the people they had been, silent and solemn and heavy of heart. For the past two days they had patiently awaited the return of the search party, desperate for news of lost loved ones. But both days had ended in disappointment, and now whatever hope they clung to had to be paper thin.

“I’m ending the search for survivors,” said Concepcion.

Jeppe, an elderly Italian who had become a spokesman for the survivors, objected. “There have to be places we haven’t searched,” he said.

“There aren’t,” said Concepcion. “As painful as I know this must be, we all must accept facts and move forward.”

“What about the bodies?” asked Jeppe. “We can’t leave them out there.”

“We can and we will,” said Concepcion. “The recovery effort could take weeks to conduct safely, and we’ve stayed here too long already. Under other circumstances I would agree, but these are not normal circumstances. We need to move now. I remind you that there are three members of my own family among the dead who have not been recovered. All of us are making sacrifices.”

She meant Toron, Faron, and Janda. The miners never found Janda’s body in their searches, and now that the search was over, no one ever would. Victor felt a pang of guilt as he pictured Toron in his mind, dying there on the pod, pleading for Victor to find his daughter.

Concepcion continued. “Our primary mission now is to warn Earth and Luna and everyone in the Belts that this near-lightspeed ship is coming. The pod is incontrovertible evidence that the ship is alien and that the species flying it has malicious intent. If we had a laserline transmitter, we could send a warning immediately, but at the moment, we have no reliable long-range communication. The radio is working, but without a laserline, I doubt we’ll send a message at this distance with any accuracy. I suggest we set a course for Weigh Station Four and try to hail them as we approach. We can then use their laserline transmitter to send a warning from there.”

“Agreed,” said Dreo. “But sending the warning via laserline isn’t a sure thing. We can’t count on our message getting through. We’re still a long way from Earth. Any message we send in that direction will have to pass through several hands and relay stations along the way before it reaches Earth. If the message isn’t passed on, if it stops somewhere along the chain, it dies there. It happens all the time. You know how these relay stations work. Corporates and paying accounts get top priority. Those are relayed first. The computers do that automatically. We’re free miners, the dregs of space, ignorant roughnecks. The station attendants would push our messages aside only to be sent out when the server space becomes available.”

“We’ll mark the message as an emergency,” said Concepcion. “We’ll tag it as high priority.”

“Of course,” said Dreo. “But that’s overused. Some clans mark all of their messages as emergencies in hopes of getting top placement and being quickly sent through. Believe me, when I worked for corporates, I had to deal with these relay stations all the time. Seventy to eighty percent of the laserlines they get every day are marked as emergencies even though most of them aren’t. ‘Emergency’ means nothing.”

“But we have an overwhelming amount of evidence,” said Father. “The helmet-cam footage shows that the pod had images of Earth. The Eye has given us mountains of data to suggest the ship is moving in that direction. We have eyewitness accounts of the pod attacking without provocation. We even have footage of the hormigas themselves. No one can refute this.”

“Yes,” said Dreo, “but no one will know any of that until they open the message. Which these relay stations won’t do. And even in the remote chance that someone does open the message, they might dismiss what little evidence they look at as either a hoax or simply a mistake of our equipment. And if they think that, they’ll do more than not pass it on, they’ll delete it.”

“You make it sound hopeless,” said Mother.

“I’m being realistic,” said Dreo. “I’m telling you how the system works.”

“We’ll get other clans and families involved,” said Father. “We’ll tell them where to look in deep space, something we should have done a long time ago. We’ll turn everyone’s attention out here to the alien ship. Whoever has a sky scanner as good as our Eye would detect the ship and send a warning message to Earth. Maybe if we build a swell of warnings, if we make enough noise, something will get through.”

“Maybe,” said Dreo. “Probably. But how much time do we have here before it reaches the Kuiper Belt? Six months? A year?”

“I’ve asked Edimar to give us a status,” said Concepcion. “She’ll update us on the ship’s trajectory and position. Edimar?”

The crowd parted, and Edimar stepped forward. It was the first time Victor had seen her since Toron’s death. She looked exhausted and small. Victor’s heart went out to her. She had lost her father and sister in a few short weeks. And now, with Toron gone, she had the overwhelming responsibility of being the family’s only sky scanner. Her face was expressionless, and Victor knew that Edimar was doing what she always did: burying her pain, holding everything in, closing everyone else out.

“As has been mentioned,” she said, “we now know with some degree of certainty that the ship is on a trajectory with Earth. It could change its speed at any moment, but based on its current rate of deceleration, it will arrive at Earth in little over a year.”

There was a murmur of concern among the Council.

“As for when it will reach the Kuiper Belt,” said Edimar, “we obviously have much less time. I’ve run through the data over and over again now and it looks as if the ship will be relatively close to us in less than four months.”

Everyone started talking at once, alarmed. It was loud and chaotic and Concepcion called for order. “Please. Quiet. Let Edimar finish.”

The talking subsided.

“We can’t even reach Weigh Station Four in that time,” said someone in the back.

“You’re probably right,” said Edimar. “I’ve done the math. The starship will likely pass by Weigh Station Four before we get there.”

“Pass by?” said Dreo. “You mean the two will be close?”

“They won’t collide,” said Edimar. “There’s little chance of that. Weigh Station Four will be a hundred thousand kilometers away from the ship’s trajectory. That should be a safe distance.”

“In relative space terms, that’s not all that far,” said Mother. “That’s only a quarter of the distance from the Earth to the Moon. That’s too close for comfort. We have to move now. Immediately. We need to warn the weigh station as soon as possible.”

“We need to be clear about our warning, though,” said Dreo. “We know plenty about the pod, but less about the ship. Such as its size. Do we even know how big it is?”

“Not precisely,” said Edimar. “It’s heading toward us, so we don’t know its length. We can only detect the front of it. But even that is big. At least a kilometer across.”

This time the reaction in the room was a stunned silence.

Victor thought Edimar had misspoken. A kilometer? And that was the ship’s width, not its length. That couldn’t be right. What could possibly be that big?

“Any of you are welcome to check my calculations,” said Edimar. “I hope you can prove me wrong. But you won’t. I didn’t believe it myself until I rechecked it the fifth time. This ship is big.”

And filled with creatures like those that killed Janda and Toron and the Italians, thought Victor. How many could fit in a ship that size? Thousands? Tens of thousands? And what about pods and other weaponized ships? How many pods could squeeze into a ship a kilometer across?

Sending a laserline wasn’t enough, he realized. Dreo was right. A warning might get through, but not as quickly as it needed to, if at all. Any number of things could go wrong, and then Earth would be caught off guard. We need a contingency plan, he told himself. We need a way to get the evidence to Earth and in the right hands as soon as possible. No delays, no middleman holding up or deleting the warning. We need a person on Earth presenting the evidence to people that matter, decision makers, political leaders, government agencies. That was the only way it was going to get noticed.

It all became clear to him then. He understood in that moment what he needed to do.

“A quickship,” said Victor.

Everyone turned to him.

“We need to send a quickship to Luna. The laserline is one approach we should pursue, but it shouldn’t be the only one. If Dreo is right, there’s too much of a chance the message won’t get through. We can’t risk that. There’s too much at stake. We have to have a second means of warning Earth.”

“What are you suggesting?” asked Concepcion. “That we put all of the evidence on a data cube and send the cube on a quickship to Luna?”

“If we just put a data cube on the ship, it probably wouldn’t get noticed,” said Victor. “All of the quickships go directly to the mineral docks. They don’t pass through human hands. And even if someone did notice the cube, we can’t be certain that person would recognize its significance and put it in the right hands. What I’m suggesting is that we send the data cube with an escort. Someone rides in the quickship to Luna with all the evidence and then gets passage to Earth to deliver that evidence to the people who need to see it.”

There was a pause as everyone stared at him.

“You can’t be serious,” said Selmo.

“Victor,” said Concepcion. “Flying a quickship around on a rescue mission with docking propulsion is one thing. Riding in one to Luna is another matter entirely. The quickship isn’t designed to accommodate a passenger.”

“I can fix that,” said Victor. “I can build a seat and cover the cockpit with shields to block out cosmic rays and solar radiation. I can make it safe. The cargo hold is more than big enough for batteries and one of the large air tanks. And the suits are already designed for food intake and waste removal. It’s just a matter of stockpiling the needed supplies.”

“That trip takes six months,” said Selmo. “You’re proposing that someone ride in a quickship for six months?”

“A full cargo of mineral cylinders takes six months,” said Victor. “A quickship with only a passenger and gear will take longer. You wouldn’t want to accelerate and decelerate as quickly with a human inside. Too much G-force. Seven months or so is probably more accurate.”

“You want to strap someone between two deep-space rockets and fire him like a bullet to Luna?” said Selmo. “That’s insane. Who would be crazy enough to do such a thing?”

“I would,” said Victor.

The room was silent. They looked at him. No one moved. To Victor’s surprise, Mother didn’t seem alarmed. Her face, instead of shock or disagreement, displayed a pained acceptance, as if she had been expecting this moment, as if she had known all along that Victor would propose such a thing, even though the whole idea had only just occurred to him. He had said nothing to her about his need to leave, about how his love for Janda had made it impossible for him to stay here. But from the look on her face, Mother somehow already knew.

He would apologize to her later in private for his suggesting to leave without first consulting with her and Father. But he knew, even as he considered this, that if he had conceived the idea beforehand, he wouldn’t have mentioned it to them first. Not because he didn’t respect them or because he thought they might object, but because it would mean admitting to their faces that he was leaving them, which he knew would break their hearts.

But wasn’t it crueler to do it here, in front of everyone, where Mother and Father couldn’t contest the matter as they would in private? No. Because here they could set emotion aside. Here, in the presence of everyone, it was easier to think of the greater need.

“I know it’s dangerous,” said Victor. “I know it sounds next to impossible. But if it can be done, aren’t we morally obligated to do it? We can’t rely on a single method of warning, particularly one as uncertain as an Earth-bound laserline. We need a backup. There are all kinds of considerations, I know. I wouldn’t have greaves or a fuge or simulated gravity. So muscle atrophy is a concern, as is bone density, and blood volume. But if anyone is going to attempt a trip like that and put that much strain on a body it should be me. I’m young. I’m healthy. I’m at my prime. Plus I was born in space. I have an advantage over those of you who are older and were born on Earth and whose bodies have had to adjust. More importantly, I can make repairs. If anything happens to the rockets or the shields, I can fix them. No one knows quickships better than me.”

“We can’t afford to let Vico go,” said Dreo. “He’s too valuable a mechanic.”

“We can’t afford not to let me go,” said Victor. “Everything we know so far about this alien ship suggests that it’s a threat, maybe to the entire human race. This is bigger than El Cavador, bigger than all of us. Father knows more about this ship than I do. If something breaks, he can fix it. You have Mono, too. He’s small, but he’s incredibly capable. We can’t think about what’s best for us anymore. This is about Earth now, about home.”

He had never called Earth home before, not out loud anyway. No one did, even those who had been born there. El Cavador was their home. The Kuiper Belt was home. But no one argued the point. They all agreed that their deeper allegiance lay with Earth.

“He’s right,” said Concepcion. “If Victor can prove that a quickship flight is possible, for the sake of Earth, we should do it. I suggest we set out for Weigh Station Four immediately while Victor prepares one of the quickships. Once it’s ready, we’ll decelerate enough to drop him off and continue on to Weigh Station Four. If there are objections or better ideas, let’s hear them now.”

The crew was silent. Mother remained still, watching Concepcion. Father put a hand on Victor’s shoulder.

“Then let’s move,” said Concepcion.

Victor worked for two weeks on the quickship in the cargo bay. Building the shields was the hardest part. Since he wouldn’t be attempting any atmospheric entry, he could make the shields as heavy as they needed to be, which was good. He worried about cosmic rays penetrating the shields and interacting with the metal to form radioactive neutrons, so the thicker the better. He didn’t stop there, however. He also installed water tanks all along the cockpit’s interior to create another layer of protection. Then he packed radiation detection equipment and additional shield plates and tools in case he needed to make adjustments en route.

Mono helped of course, doing simple welding and cutting jobs, all while trying to convince Victor that he, Mono, should be allowed to come along. “What if you get hurt?” Mono asked one morning. “What if something happens to your suit? You might need someone to help you.”

“I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have at my side, Mono,” said Victor. “But you can’t come. It’s too dangerous.”

“Why is it too dangerous for me but not too dangerous for you?”

“It is dangerous for me. But I’m bigger. My body can take more of the abuse.”

“I’m tough,” said Mono, offended. “I can take abuse.”

“It has nothing to do with toughness,” said Victor. “It’s more about body size and structure. You can’t help how small you are. You’re only nine. And believe me, it’s not the kind of trip you’d want to go on anyway. It will be extremely boring. You know how it feels to be grounded to your room for a day?”

“It’s cruel and unusual punishment.”

“Right. Try doing that for two hundred and twenty days or so. No birthday parties. No Christmas. No playing with friends. No time with your parents. No fun repairs on the ship. No exploring. No desserts or cookies or fun treats. I won’t even get to chew my food. I’ll have to suck up vitamin mush through a straw in my helmet.”

Mono made a face. “Gross. I hate that stuff.”

“You and me both,” said Victor. “And I’ll be eating it every day for seven months. With no seasoning, no spreading it on bread to make it tolerable, no mixing it with sugary oatmeal, just straight, bland mush. Plus I have to wear a catheter and another device that’s so disgusting that I’m not even going to explain what it is or how it works. Suffice it to say, it won’t be comfortable. Then there’s the abuse. My bones will thin and become susceptible to fracture. My muscles will weaken. My vertebrae will spread apart. My discs will swell with fluid, giving me backaches. I’ll likely have decreased blood volume; maybe calcium deposits as my bones weaken, which will likely gather in my kidneys and result in stones; fatigue; not to mention possible impotency from radiation exposure.”

“What’s impotency?”

“Means I wouldn’t be able to have children. But I’m hoping that’s not the case. That’s why we’ve got the shields and water tanks. My point is, it’s not a party.”

“But you’d be with me,” said Mono. “That would be fun at least.”

Victor smiled. “Trust me, Mono. You’d get sick of me. I’m pretty certain that I’ll get sick of me.”

Mono hung his head and began to cry. “I don’t want you to go, Vico. I don’t want you to get sick.”

Victor set down his tools and floated over to Mono. “Hey, monkey brains. I’m going to be fine. I’m exaggerating everything. Isabella has all kinds of pills for me to take throughout the trip that will counter a lot of the discomfort. I’m not going to get sick. I may need some gym time once I arrive to get the muscles back up, but I’ll be fine.”

“But what if the hormigas get you?”

“The hormigas aren’t going to get me, Mono. They’re not going to get any of us. That’s why we’re hurrying to warn everyone, so that no one else gets hurt.”

Victor wanted to tell Mono that he would return soon and that the two of them would be a team again when this was all over. Mono could continue as his apprentice. They’d learn the rest of the ship together. They’d invent things, build things, repair things.

But Victor said none of that because he knew it wasn’t true. He wouldn’t be coming back. Probably ever.

“El Cavador needs you here, Mono. My father needs you. When I’m gone you’ll have to do more repairs around here. He’ll be counting on you for all the small-hand work. He can’t do it all himself. Listen to him. He’s the best mechanic in the Belt. He’ll teach you far more about this ship than I can.”

“I don’t want anyone else teaching me about the ship. I want to be your apprentice.” Mono threw his arms around Victor’s neck and cried into his shoulder.

Over the next few days Father ignored his work elsewhere on the ship and spent his time in the cargo bay helping Victor and Mono make final preparations for the ship. Mother found excuses to be there as well, doing small jobs to the quickship to make it as comfortable as possible. Father inspected Victor’s work and kindly pointed out a few flaws. The two of them then selected the appropriate tools and addressed the issues together. It reminded Victor of all the years he had spent as Father’s apprentice, following Father around the ship and handing him tools whenever Father needed them. Father had been indestructible then, as far as Victor was concerned. There was no machine in the universe Father couldn’t repair. And even now, with Victor older and all of Father’s weaknesses glaringly obvious, Victor still regarded Father with that same sense of awe-though now Victor’s respect wasn’t born from Father’s capacity to fix things; it came from Father’s capacity to love, his willingness to make any sacrifice for Victor and Mother and the family. Victor could see that now. Father and Mother were making the biggest sacrifice of their lives here. As painful as it was for them to see Victor go, somehow they knew that it would be more painful for him if he stayed.

Victor left the following morning. Nearly the whole family came to see him off. The quickship was ready in the airlock, having passed Father’s meticulous inspection. All the supplies were boarded and secured. Victor’s modified suit, which several of the women had prepared under Isabella’s and Concepcion’s instructions, fit him better than he could have hoped. He noticed the catheter and the other uncomfortable devices he had to wear, but he found them more manageable than he had expected.

Isabella embraced him and made him promise he’d take his pills and follow the diet plan she had outlined. Victor carried his helmet under his arm, and Bahzim and the other miners knocked on it for good luck.

Edimar hugged him. “Get to Earth safe, Vico. When humans kill all the hormigas, I want to know it was you who told them to.”

Next came Concepcion. “The data cube is in the ship,” she said. “Don’t let anyone ignore you because you’re young. Even though you have overwhelming evidence, it’s going to be tough to find anyone to listen to you. You’re a free miner. You’re space born. That’s two strikes against you on Luna. Don’t give up. Find someone you can trust and follow your instincts.”

“I’ll do my best,” Victor said.

Mother embraced him and gave him a small data card for his handheld. “This is from your father and me. Don’t watch it until you’re a month out.”

Victor didn’t question her. “I promise.”

“I love you, Vico. If you weren’t as smart and resourceful as you are I’d be scared to death. But if anyone can do this, you can.”

“I love you, too, Mother.”

Father wrapped him in his long, thick arms. “I’m proud of you. Don’t take risks. Your goal is to get to Earth alive. Be smart. Whenever you have to make a decision ask yourself what your mother would do and then do that. She hasn’t made a mistake yet that I know of.”

Mother smiled.

Small arms wrapped around Victor’s waist, and Mono looked up at him. “I’ll be waiting for you, Vico. When you get back, I’ll know this ship better than you do.”

Victor smiled and tousled Mono’s hair. “I don’t doubt it, monkey brains.”

He didn’t linger after that. He moved into the airlock and climbed into the cockpit. Two miners in suits removed the anchor harnesses, opened the airlock, and pushed him outside.

All was silent. Before strapping himself in, Victor allowed himself one last look back at El Cavador. The airlock was already closed. As he watched, the ship began its slow acceleration toward Weigh Station Four.

He was alone. He looked at the data card Mother had given him and slid it into the slot on the side of his handheld. The icon appeared on the screen, but he didn’t click it. He checked and rechecked his hoses and attachments. He did a sweep with the Geiger counter and found no signs of radiation, though he didn’t expect to, not this early in the trip. He put the gear away and buckled in. The gel cushioning of the seat was thick and malleable. Once the rockets engaged, he would be pressed against it like a fist into bread dough. He clicked through his handheld and found the launch program to Luna. He had watched the miners initiate the program countless times before as they sent cylinders on to Luna. The rockets would accelerate quickly, far faster than a human could withstand. Victor had already researched human tolerance levels and altered the program to decrease the acceleration and lessen the Gs. But as his finger hovered over the launch button, he wondered if he had pulled back the rockets enough. He needed to get up to speed as quickly as he could, but he needed to be careful, too. He hadn’t trained for this. His body wasn’t ready. He pulled back the acceleration setting a little more, just to be sure, then pressed the button.

The program initiated. The rockets flared. The ship moved forward, slowly at first. Then the rockets went hot, and the quickship took off. Victor felt himself pushed back into the seat and knew immediately that he had misjudged. He should have pulled back farther. His face felt slack. His body felt heavy. He reached out for the handheld but his hand wouldn’t obey him. His vision began to tunnel. His windpipe felt constricted. He was going to die. Two minutes into his journey and he was going to die. He thought of Janda and wondered if he would see her after this life. Mother believed such things, but Victor wasn’t so sure. He hoped it was true, of course. He wanted nothing more than to see Janda again. Only, not now. Not yet.

His mind went blank.

Then all went black.

He woke sometime later, his body weightless. The ship was moving at an incredible speed, but it was no longer accelerating. No more Gs; this was a cruising speed. Victor shook his head and blinked his eyes, feeling foolish for his mistake. This didn’t bode well for a successful trip. I nearly kill myself right from the start. Brilliant.

He blinked his eyes again. They no longer felt like they were boring into the back of his skull. His throat felt open and free. His whole body felt numb, as if all of his muscles were asleep from lack of circulation, which they probably were. His head pounded from a migraine. He felt nauseated and disoriented.

I need a fail-safe, he realized. If I have to decelerate and accelerate, I can’t risk passing out and losing control again. He thought of the biometric sensors all over his body monitoring his vitals and wondered why he had never thought to connect them to the ship’s operations. That had been a foolish oversight. He quickly whipped up a simple program on his handheld that would tell the ship to decelerate if his heart rate or blood pressure dropped below certain levels. He next devised a program to ask him questions periodically, to identify a number perhaps or to retype a word. If he couldn’t, if he had lost his mental faculties for whatever reason, the ship would decelerate until he came to himself.

But what if I don’t come to myself? he thought. What if I’m dead? If I die then the ship will decelerate and stay out here and never reach Luna. That wouldn’t do. It would be better if he reached Luna as a corpse with the data cube than never reach Luna at all. He altered the program so that if his heart monitor flatlined for at least twenty-four hours, the rockets would accelerate to maximum and get his corpse and, more importantly, the data cube to Luna as quickly as possible.

Over the next few weeks, he occasionally accelerated and decelerated simply to train his body to withstand the forces, increasing the speed of acceleration and deceleration a little more each time. He blacked out often, but the ship responded well and decelerated whenever it happened, allowing him to come to himself quickly. Eventually he could stay conscious for two hours of fast acceleration. Then three hours. Then four.

In other areas, he wasn’t doing as well. Eating had become a chore. Victor had assumed that he would eventually come to accept the vitamin mush over time, that eating it would become tolerable simply out of habit. But it didn’t. If anything, the mush became more unappetizing with every meal, and he had to force himself to eat it while suppressing his gag reflex.

One of Father’s ideas turned out to be a lifesaver. He had suggested that Victor bring along a hatch bubble to inflate periodically on a flat surface inside the quickship. With Victor inside and with the bubble filled with air, Victor could get out of his suit briefly and clean the suit tubes and brush his teeth and sponge his skin and do everything else he needed to keep himself sanitary.

The biggest challenge of the trip, even more taxing than the physical stress or the food or the cramped confines of the ship, was the sheer boredom of it all. He had assumed that loading his handheld with books and recordings and games and puzzles would be enough to stimulate his mind for seven months, but here he was wrong as well. His eyes strained from looking at the screen after a few days, and soon even listening became tedious. As he approached the month mark, his mind continually returned to the message Mother had left him. He considered opening it early-what difference would it make, after all? — but he always decided against it. He had made a promise.

He was so eager for something different, so desperate for a break in the monotony, that he found it hard to sleep the night before the message was to be opened. Eventually he slipped into slumber, and when he awoke, he clicked on the icon. Father had installed a holopad attachment to his handheld, and Mother’s head appeared in the holospace. He lifted it and turned it toward him so that it was as if she were looking directly at him. Even before she spoke, Victor felt more alone and more isolated than he had ever felt in his life. He had six months more to go and already he hated this existence.

“You’re a month out, Vico,” Mother said. “And by now you’re probably ready for this trip to be over. Hang in there, Viquito. Whenever you feel lonely watch this message. Know that your father and I are thinking about you and praying for your safe arrival. We’re proud of you, and we know you’ll be fine.”

Mother paused to gather herself. Her voice had begun to break. She swallowed and sounded like herself again.

“But that’s not why we’ve made this message. You’re my son, Vico. My only child, the light of my life, so know that what I am about to say I say because I love you and want the best for you. Don’t come back. Don’t return to El Cavador. Under your seat, you’ll find a disc with access codes to an account your father and I have set up for you. It’s not much, but it’s all we have. Concepcion has donated all her savings as well. Use that money to enroll in a university on Earth after you give warning. Your mind is too valuable to waste in the Belt, Vico. You can do great things, but not here, not with us.” Mother was crying now. “I’ll always love you. Make us proud.”

The message ended. Mother disappeared. They were releasing him. They were giving him a way to move on. He had wondered what he would do and where he would go after he had given the warning, and now he had his answer. The feeling of loneliness left him. He felt renewed, determined. He could endure six more months. For Mother and Father and Earth, he could endure it.