Terran Tomorrow

CHAPTER 4

Jane stood in the… courtyard? lobby?—no English word she had learned for the Terran structures on World fit this cluttered area of Enclave Dome—and let six children look at her. She knew that she was like nothing they had ever seen before.

Earth was like nothing she had seen before, or had imagined. Lindy Ross said there was hardly anyone left after the plague, but then she said there were perhaps two hundred million people still alive on the planet. Two hundred million! All of World contained, on its one small continent, only fifteen million people. Lindy said that many might be left in the “United States,” a subdivision of this continent that Jane had trouble grasping. It didn’t seem to be based on lahks or families. And the head of government, who had not been a Mother but a man, was dead without anybody else taking that role except the Army.

These children had lahks, of course. Four little boys and two girls. The smaller girl came shyly forward, held out two chubby fingers, and touched Jane’s hand below the “sleeve” of the “shirt” that had been given to Jane to wear over her wrap. “Are you real?”

Jane laughed. “Yes. What is your name?”

“Caitlin.”

“I greet you, Caitlin. I am Jane.”

Emboldened, two of the boys inched forward. One said, “Do you come from a star?”

“Yes.”

Murmurs, wide eyes, wiggling. The boy said, “Does it have a really big dome?”

“No dome.”

“You went outside with no dome? You’ll die!”

“Here, yes. But not on my planet.”

They digested this. Jane had no idea how much they understood. Two adults, a barefoot man and a woman with startlingly red hair, stood nearby, talking to each other and ignoring everything else. Jane said, “Do you children go now to the school?”

“Yes.” Caitlin, her brown hair in two bunches on either side of her head. “Where are you going?”

“I come now from Lab Dome. I wait for someone to take me to see Colonel Jenner.”

The boy said importantly, “You need soldiers to go to Lab Dome. And an esuit.”

“I know.”

Caitlin said, “Can you hear the ground?”

It must be an idiom. “Hear what?”

“The ground,” Caitlin said. “The air. The machines. The sky.”

“I hear it, too,” one of the older boys said.

“You’re a liar!” another said.

The first boy punched him. Jane, shocked, waited for the adults to rush over and be severe with the child. No adult did, so she said, “Stop! You cannot hit people!”

“You’re not the boss of me!” The boy ran off.

“Scott!” the man called after him. Scott did not answer. Reluctantly, the man jogged after the boy.

Caitlin said, “I do hear the ground and everything! I put it in rows!”

“Okay,” Jane said, that useful word. Caitlin stopped scowling.

The other girl, who had not so far spoken, demanded, “When are you going back to your star?”

“I don’t know.”

“We don’t have enough room for more refugees. Daddy said. You can’t stay here.” She turned her back.

Caitlin cried, “You shut up! I like her!”

The woman walked over. “Kids, time for school. Come on.” She smiled briefly at Jane. The children followed her, threading their way among crates, machines, benches, all of which seemed as permanent as the mysterious lines on the floor beneath a broken string basket on a tall pole.

Why had the children been permitted to be so rude? On World, children were always accompanied by adults until it was certain they understood bu^ka^tel and could be trusted with consideration for others and proper reverence for Mother World. Jane had burst with pride the first day she had been allowed to walk to a shop alone, relied on to behave properly. Even without bu^ka^tel, manners and restraint were important when a lot of people had to live together with no room to expand. And what had the children meant: Caitlin saying she could hear the ground, the other girl saying there was no room for refugees and Jane would have to leave? Where had she gotten that idea?

Jane rubbed her forehead. The headache, a vague presence since she’d woken up from having her microbes changed, had increased to a dull ache just above her eyes. It had not, however, kept her from asking Zack and Lindy and anyone else she encountered questions about Terra. She wanted to know everything about how life worked in this bewildering, alien place.

Food was brought in from outside. Soldiers went into the wilderness and killed large animals for their flesh. However, most food, Jane was glad to hear, was made of plants grown on farms and collected in FiVees. It was irradiated to kill R. sporii avivirus. Outside, the virus multiplied in bird droppings, dried to dust, and was blown up into the air, turning every breath deadly. Water was taken somehow from the air by machines. Most of the Terran clothing had been made by “3-D printers,” whatever those were, although not so much now because “raw material” was in short supply. Sometimes “foraging parties” of soldiers brought new garments in through decon.

All the dome areas that Jane had seen were crowded with inanimate things. Nowhere were there any plants or flowers or parks or anything alive except humans. Little Caitlin had never sat on grass, never picked a flower, never stroked or fed a pet animal. She had never seen graceful and spacious houses, like the lahks built of karthwood on World. Those had soaring curves following the natural curves of the wood, sides that could be opened to the sweet air, views of purple valleys thick with crops and orchards and people bicycling on white roads under the calm orange sun. The light here, inside and out, was so bright. It hurt her eyes.

“Ugly, isn’t it?” Glamet^vor¡ had come up behind her. “I greet you, Jeg^faan.”

“Jane,” she said.

“Not to me. I am so sorry that we came to Terra. I think your father regrets this as well.”

“He does not,” Jane said, although she didn’t really know. Her father, La^vor, and Belok^ all had a harder time with the microbe adjustment and the vaccines against Terran diseases. They were still recovering in Lab Dome.

Glamet^vor¡ said, “Where are you going? I can’t work with any of the Terrans in Lab Dome unless you’re there to translate.”

Jane wasn’t sure he would be of any use in the labs even if she did translate. She said, “I am waiting for someone to take me to Colonel Jenner. He wishes to see me.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Find out if Branch Carter has landed the ship and when it will return to World. I will be on it.”

Startled, Jane said, “The ship is returning to World?”

“I hope so. Where else is there for it to go?”

A reasonable question. But reason was absent from the sneer on Glamet^vor¡’s handsome face. How could he be so different from his sister? La^vor had the sweetest nature Jane had ever met. Once again, Jane was glad that she had refused the mating contract with Glamet^vor¡, even though he was so brilliant. That she had “changed her mind.”

A soldier approached them. “Ms. Jane Ka^graa?”

“Yes,” Jane said, even though her father’s name had nothing to do with hers; they did not even belong to the same lahk. Glamet^vor¡ snorted.

“Come with me, please. Colonel Jenner will see you now.”

He led her through a bewildering maze of corridors to a closed door guarded by a soldier in armor, with a gun strapped to her side. Why? The first soldier saluted and said something Jane didn’t catch. They were allowed to pass, climbing a flight of stairs to the top of Enclave Dome, and another closed door. Her escort said something to the air. Then he opened the door, led her in, and saluted.

Colonel Jenner rose from behind a big desk in the middle of the room. “Dismissed, Private.”

“Yes, sir.”

Another salute and he left, closing the door. Tentatively, Jane imitated the salute. Colonel Jenner’s eyes narrowed, but then he smiled. “No, Ms. Ka^graa, only soldiers may do that.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

“That’s all right. Weren’t you around the soldiers we sent to World?”

He was watching her very carefully. Tall, straight-backed, brown hair and his grandmother’s eyes. Sometimes Marianne’s eyes looked like that: weary but determined.

Jane said, “Yes, a little. At the end of their time on World. My father worked with the Terran scientists on World. My lahk mother permitted this. She is the lahk’s ‘colonel.’”

“The leader. Your society is matrilineal.”

“Yes.”

The room was an upended bowl. In the center sat a big wooden desk, facing a few chairs. The only items on the desk were a plain white coffee cup and a carved wooden box emblazoned with a red-striped white square, with an inset square of pointy, white-on-blue symbols. Equipment and screens, none of which Jane could identify, lined the curving walls waist-high. Above them, the curved dome was clear to the sky, a blinding blue fringed with green trees. Jane blinked and looked down.

Colonel Jenner said, “The brightness hurts your eyes.”

“Yes,” she said, surprised that he’d noticed.

“Try these.” From his desk he pulled out a pair of dark spectacles. Jane put them on. “Better?”

“Yes! Thank you. What is their word?”

“Sunglasses. Sit down, Ms. Ka^graa.”

“Only ‘Jane.’ We don’t use names of our fathers.”

“Of your mothers?”

“On papers and for ceremonies, yes. But not for everyday.” She didn’t explain to him the courtesy titles of “mak” or “kal,” because it would involve explaining so much else.

“Why did you pick ‘Jane’ for a name? You don’t have to tell me, I’m just curious.”

“I like the sound.” Jane sat on the chair he’d indicated. Like the desk, it was too tall. Worlders, a tall people, liked cushions on the floor and low tables.

Colonel Jenner was not what she’d expected. Lindy Ross and Zack McKay didn’t seem to like him. Jane’s father regarded the colonel with suspicion—but then, on World her father had always been happier with the Terran scientists than with the soldiers, although he’d come to respect Leo Brodie. Colonel Jenner seemed milder than Jane had envisioned, more curious and open, although not relaxed. A tiny patch of skin at his temple twitched constantly.

“If you were only around the Terran diplomatic mission for a short time, how did you learn English?”

“I learned for years from my cousin Graa^lok, who was friends of Austin Rhinehart, a Terran. I practiced very much.”

“Why?”

She said simply, “I hoped to come to Earth. To where my people became taken, a hundred and forty thousand years ago. I didn’t know if that will happen, but I wished to prepare.”

“I see. And now you are here. I know it must not be what you expected.”

“No. It is a…,” she searched for the word. “… a tragedy. But I can see that it will became better. After war ends. The wilderness is beautiful.”

Colonel Jenner stared at her. Oddly, this didn’t make Jane uncomfortable.

The door opened and a woman in uniform entered. Colonel Jenner said, “Ah, Major. This is Jane. My second in command, Major Duncan.”

Jane said, “I greet you, Major Duncan.” Another title? There had been no “majors” among the Terrans on World, and Jane thought the word meant “large” or “important.” But Major Duncan wasn’t in command here, so she couldn’t be more important than Colonel Jenner. Also, she was tall but not particularly large. It was very confusing.

Major Duncan looked strong and severe. Her hair had been scraped back under a soldier hat; her boots shone blindingly; her face bore no expression as she nodded at Jane. She said nothing, and evidently Colonel Jenner didn’t expect her to. He said to Jane, his tone less warm and more detached, “Even though you only met the Terran soldiers at the end of their deployment to World, I’d like you to tell me what happened with them.”

“It will be better to talk to my father. He was there, in the compound, much longer. Or to… to Dr. Jenner.”

He didn’t react to the mention of his grandmother. “I will talk to all of them, but they are all recovering still from microbial adjustment. Only you and Glamet^vor¡ are out of the infirmary… that’s not how you say his name, is it? I’m sorry, I’m not good at languages.”

“That is okay. He should to choose a Terran name.”

“But I see from your face that he will not.”

The colonel was quick-witted. Jane said, “No, he will not. He doesn’t like it here.”

“But you do.”

“I don’t know yet. But it is interesting.”

Colonel Jenner laughed, a short bark that seemed to explode from him without his choice; he looked astonished that it had. Major Duncan didn’t change expression. The colonel said, “I’m sorry—I wasn’t laughing at you. There’s a silly Terran curse: ‘May you live in interesting times.’”

“And you do,” Jane said. He looked much different when he laughed.

Again he studied her intently, and again he turned formal.

“Yes. Now please tell us everything you know of the Terran expedition to World, starting at the beginning. Even if you only heard it from others.”

She did, careful to include everything and in the right order: the attack by another Terran spaceship (“They said it was Russian”) that destroyed the Friendship and killed most of the Terran expedition. How the survivors, four soldiers and five others, had not known about the time jump. How they tried and failed to find a vaccine against the same spore cloud that had hit Earth earlier. How Branch Carter had made contact with the colony ship launched decades before; the ship had been contaminated with spores that had killed the colonists but not the leelees aboard—

Major Duncan spoke for the first time. “What is a leelee?”

“A animal that Marianne used by experiments. Like your mice.”

“I see. Go on.”

Marianne and Claire had realized there must be something aboard the colony ship that killed the spores. Branch discovered how to call the ship back and it contained the virophage, airborne, that had saved most of World’s people by counteracting R. sporii. That ship was the Return.

“Thank you,” Colonel Jenner said, “but what did the soldiers do?”

“Did not Ranger Kandiss tell you?”

“He did. I want to hear your version.”

There were no different “versions” of truth, only truth and lies. Jane’s headache was worse. She said, “Lieutenant Lamont was the leader soldier. They built the compound to protect the lab from people who tried to steal the little amount of vaccine Claire brought from Terra. But it was stealed anyway, by Lieutenant Lamont. He also tried to destroy the device necessary to call back the colony ship. He wanted the spore cloud to destroy World. He hated us. I didn’t know why. I also now don’t know why, but I heard that he believed Worlders did not tell Terra the truth about the spore cloud. That Worlders caused it, to hurt Terra. Or maybe not that we caused it, but that we knew it would kill so many on Terra and did not say. Or something bad. I don’t know what he believed, or what the Russians believed when they destroyed our cities. I know that Lieutenant Lamont tried to destroy the call-back device so we cannot call back the colony ship and save World.”

She could not tell from Colonel Jenner’s face whether or not he already had this information. Wouldn’t Ranger Kandiss have told him all this? Why was he making Jane relive it all? She had lost members of her lahk in the destruction of the beautiful capital city, Kam^tel^ha. They had all lost so much to the Russian attacks, including their only other starship.

Colonel Jenner said, “And what happened to Lieutenant Lamont?”

“Lieutenant Brodie—”

“Lieutenant? Did he give himself that rank?”

Jane tried to remember. “No, I think no. He said he was ‘corporal.’ But his soldiers—his World soldiers and also Ranger Zoe—called him that. Later, I mean.”

“I see. Then what happened?”

“Lieutenant Brodie killed Lieutenant Lamont. To stop him of shooting another Terran so Lieutenant Lamont can obtain the device and destroy it. Then Lieutenant Brodie and Ranger Zoe stayed on World. They are there now.”

“Thank you, Jane, for all that information. I can see you’re angry. Why?”

“You already knew this.”

“Yes. But confirmation of intelligence is important. And I learned a new fact: You don’t like talking about violence.”

“No.”

“Let me ask you this—do you think Lieutenant Brodie was right to kill his commanding officer?”

For the first time, Major Duncan’s face changed; she showed surprise, almost immediately gone. Jane wasn’t surprised; this was a question of ethics, and so had been endlessly discussed on World. Jane had discussed it with La^vor, who said no, violence was never justified. But…

Jane said slowly, “Yes, I think Lieutenant Brodie was right. Lieutenant Lamont was ready to shoot another Terran, a child. And Brodie-mak saved so many more of lives on World by to obtain the call-back device before it was destroyed.”

“Did he stay on World to avoid court-martial?”

“What is that?”

“A judgment about the killing, with possible punishment.”

“No, he did not stay on World because of that. He stayed to help rebuild, and to make an army on World for if the Russian ship comes back. Also, he signed a mating contract with Isabel Rhinehart from the Friendship. You asked me many questions, Colonel. May I ask now?”

He looked surprised. “Yes, I suppose so. But first—Major, do you have any additional questions?”

“No, sir.”

“Dismissed.”

When Major Duncan had gone, Colonel Jenner turned back to Jane. “Ask your questions.”

“When I waited for a soldier to bring me to you, I talked to some of children. They were very unpolite. One said there is not room enough in the dome for us and we will became told to leave. Is this true?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Two adults stood near. They permitted the children to be unpolite and they did not tell the children we can stay. Why?”

“Jane, politics—do you know that word? Good—are complicated here. Not everyone agrees on everything. Surely that was true on World as well?”

“Yes. But no one goes against bu^ka^tel.” Not quite true, but she was angry now.

“What is bu^ka^tel?”

He was the first Terran at Monterey Base to ask. She said, “It is what makes us human. To serve and protect Mother World, to obey the Mothers who gave us life, to put the good of others equal with the good of us-selfs, to honor the ancestors, to understand that to give is the only way to receive, in the Great Web by which we all need. That is best I can say it in English. There is more, but it does not translate. Every child learns this down to the bones before they may walk alone outside their lahk.”

“And everyone keeps to this bu^ka^tel? What about the Worlders you just spoke about who tried to steal vaccine?”

“No. They did not keep to bu^ka^tel. I am sorry—I did not say true. But bu^ka^tel is the right path, even when a Worlder breaks it. To violate bu^ka^tel is to… to violate others and Mother World. It is to become outside the lahk. Nothing is worth that. Even those people who try to steal vaccine had their lahks with them in the camp. Even the Worlders in Lieutenant Brodie’s new army have permission of the lahk Mothers.”

Colonel Jenner rose and gazed out the window. Jane didn’t see anything happening out there, but she rose to take in more of the view. The sunglasses deepened the wilderness to an even lovelier green. Branches waved gently and puffy white clouds drifted through a blue sky—so blue! A flock of birds flew overhead.

He finally spoke. “So you think that Leo Brodie was justified in breaking bu^ka^tel when he shot Lieutenant Lamont.”

“Yes. But it hurt him, I think.”

“And you don’t think he stayed on World to avoid court-martial.”

“No. He wishes to rebuild, and he signed the mating contract with Isabel for five years.”

“Five years? Marriage expires after five years?”

“Expires?”

“Is ended.”

“Yes, of course. Some contracts are for two years or three.”

“On Terra, marriage is supposed to be for life.”

She heard but did not understand the bitterness in his voice. She said gently, “That must be difficult, I think. Sometimes people change, or what they want changes. To force people to stay married… that would not show them respect. It would not be bu^ka^tel.”

Abruptly Colonel Jenner turned away from the window, back to her. “You are going to be our translator and you should understand our life here. When my grandmother recovers, I’m going to take her outside the base to a coastal settlement. We’ll go by quadcopter, which is not completely without danger but not too bad—we fly lower than New America’s radar can detect. I would like you to come along. There is someone I would like you to meet.”

“Yes,” she said instantly. A chance to see Terra outside the domes! More than she had hoped for. “Who will we be to meet?”

Now his voice held even more complicated layers. “My brother Colin.”

Marianne stuck one bare foot out of bed and put it on the floor, then the other foot. The floor, made of alien-dome material she had not touched in thirty-eight years, tingled faintly, just as she remembered. She stood, relieved to feel neither weakness nor vomiting. Expanding her lungs as far as they would go, she took in a huge breath of Terran air.

No weakness or gastric distress. When her gut microbes had been changed on World, the more primitive process had nearly killed her. Score one for Terran science, marching forward even as everything crumpled around it.

Her cell in quarantine—you couldn’t really call it a room, too monastic—held only a bed, sink and toilet, and an array of monitors. Sometime in the night, someone must have unhooked her from them. Marianne wore a thin hospital gown open in the back—okay, not everything on Terra had progressed—and didn’t see her clothes. Before she could figure out how to ring for a nurse, Lindy Ross came in.

“Dr. Jenner! You look much better.”

“Yes. No. But I can’t… I need to talk to Jason. Colonel Jenner.”

“He probably isn’t available. Let me examine—”

“I need to talk to him!” To her own horror, Marianne heard her voice rise to a shriek. “I need to! Now!”

Dr. Ross gazed at her a long moment. “Okay, I’ll send for him, if you let me examine you now.”

“Yes! Just… I need to talk to him.”

Dr. Ross left, speaking in a low voice to someone in the corridor. After a moment she returned. “I’ve sent someone to Enclave Dome to tell him. Dr. Jenner—”

“‘Marianne.’ I’m sorry. I just need to—”

“I know. I’m Lindy. Would you like something to calm you a bit?”

“No.” Marianne tried to steady herself; she must have appeared hysterical. Maybe she was hysterical. “How… how are the others from the ship doing? Where is the ship?”

“Back in orbit. You’re the last to wake up from the microbe adjustment. Everyone is doing fine except for Kayla Rhinehart. Physically she’s well but she seems deeply depressed, maybe dangerously so. She cries constantly. Was she like that on World?”

Lindy’s tone, soothing but not condescending, was helping Marianne. “Kayla varies. Claire says she’s bipolar. Do you have lamotrigine?”

“We use something newer now. There’s no psychiatrist on base, unfortunately, and the meds can have rare but powerful psychotic side effects. I’ve prescribed them here only once. Let me consult with the Army doctor, Captain Holbrook.”

“You’re not in the Army?”

“No.” Lindy put a stethoscope to Marianne’s chest. “Cough, please.”

Marianne coughed. “Will Jason come here?”

“I’ve sent for him.”

Not an answer. Marianne had to keep talking or she would disintegrate. “I want to know more about what Jason did at the… the Collapse. Do you know him well?”

Lindy took a step backward. “I think you must not have been told, Marianne, that Jason is my ex-husband. We’re divorced, or at least as divorced as you can be when there is no government except the military.”

No, Marianne had not known that. “Do you… did you have any children?”

“No. If you’d rather have Dr. Holbrook attend you…”

“No. I… no. I just need to see Jason.”

“I’m here,” he said.

Lindy said something to him, too low for Marianne to catch, and then left, closing the door behind her. Marianne clutched Jason’s arm. “It’s all gone, all of it?”

Pity flooded him. He didn’t have to ask what she meant. He had been there, in the place she occupied now, ten years ago, and then again eight years ago. They had all been there, all the survivors of both the Collapse and then, for those who lived through the first horror, of the war. Her hand, veined and liver-spotted, tightened even more on the sleeve of his uniform.

“Yes,” he said gently. “Most of it is gone. Not all, but most.”

“Yesterday I was too stunned to really understand all the… New York? DC.”

“Yes.”

“NIH? Fermilab? The CDC? CERN?”

Leave it to his grandmother to think first of the scientific facilities.

“All the biotech firms in Boston and Maryland and Seattle—”

“Yes.” And US Strategic Command, NASA, Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, Fort Bragg, Creech, Vandenberg, Fort Benning, the labs at Livermore… The list went on and on.

She let go of Jason’s arm. Her face looked not only old, but ancient. “I can’t believe it. But… what about fallout? From the nuclear bombs—didn’t we have thousands? And other countries, too?”

“Most of them weren’t even used. Remember, the Collapse from plague came first, and fast. Nearly everyone died then, including the people with access to weapons, expertise, launch codes. US Strategic Command could only launch on direct order of the president. He died early on, and then his successors, along with the military who were supposed to receive or execute retaliation orders. When the war started two years later, most weapons weren’t usable by either side.”

“There were enough to take out all the places you just mentioned!”

“Yes. But it was such a confused time. I’m not even sure who bombed which specific targets: Russia, China, Korea, New America. Even the details of our retaliation are murky.”

“But when there were so few people left anyway… to senselessly kill more…”

She stopped. Jason understood that she, more than most people, knew how senseless some people could be. He said, “It isn’t—”

“Fallout? Even from a few nuclear strikes there would be—”

“Yes. But most of it blew west to east. And the new bombs aren’t as dirty as the ones you remember. The mechanism is different. Even the Seattle bombs didn’t harm us much here.”

“I can’t get my mind around it. All gone. And Elizabeth…”

“We never found out what happened to Aunt Liz,” he said gently. “I’m sorry. Grandma, the only thing you can do is not think about it. Think about now. Try to not remember.”

Jason exerted a lot of energy to not think about the Collapse. To not remember his frantic efforts to save what and who he could, bringing in biologists from the closest biotech firms and universities. To not remember the dying he left behind, and—much worse—the still healthy he denied a place on the copters because they could be of no use in battling this strange new plague. To not distinguish his own failures from those of the civilization disintegrating all around him. To not remember when the last of his copters was shot down, taking three good soldiers and six evacuees with it.

Lindy, he knew, remembered everything. She had remembered it over and over, until the memories somehow became bearable to her, like bloody cloths bleached lighter and lighter by sunlight. Jason couldn’t do that. He’d shut the bloody shrouds away in darkness, and only for his grandmother would he have brought them even briefly into light.

She let go of his arm and pulled at the skin of her face, and he knew that she was herself again. Battered, scarred—they were all scarred, forever—but she was not the quavery, crushed old woman he’d seen when he entered the infirmary.

“I’m sorry, Jason. I know I can’t just summon you like this—you’re in command of this base. But thank you for coming.”

He nodded, and offered her the only thing he could. “Tomorrow, I have to see Dad and Colin at the Settlement on the Coast. If you’re feeling strong enough, would you like to come?”

She raised her face to his, and her eyes glinted with tears. “Yes. I would. Please.”