The Last Colony

FIVE

Jane looked like she'd been slapped.

"What? What is it? What is the Conclave?" I asked. I looked over to Zane, who opened his hands apologetically. He didn't know, either.

"They got it off the ground," Jane said, after a pause.

"Oh, yeah," Stross said.

"What is the Conclave?" I repeated.

"It's an organization of races," Jane said, still looking over at Stross. "The idea was to band together to control this part of space and to keep other races from colonizing." She turned to me. "The last I heard about it was just before you and I went to Huckleberry."

"You knew about this and you didn't tell me," I said.

"Orders," Jane said; it came out snappishly. "It was part of the deal I had. I got to leave the Special Forces on my terms, provided I forgot everything I'd ever heard about the Conclave. I couldn't have told you even if I had wanted to. And anyway, there was nothing to tell. Everything was still in the preliminary stages and from what I knew, it wasn't going anywhere. And I learned about it through Charles Boutin. He wasn't the most credible observer of interstellar politics."

Jane seemed genuinely angry; whether at me or the situation I

couldn't tell. I decided not to push it and turned toward Stross. "But now the Conclave thing is a growing concern."

"It is," Stross said. "For over two years now. The first thing it did was warn every species who wasn't part of the Conclave not to colonize anymore."

"Or what?" Zane asked.

"Or the Conclave would wipe out their new colonies," Stross said. "That's the reason for the switcharoo here. We led the Conclave to believe we were forming a colony and settling it on one world. But in fact we sent the colony to another world entirely. One that isn't in the records or on the charts or that anyone knows about, other than a few very highly placed people. And me, because I'm here to tell you this. And now you. The Conclave was all set to attack Roanoke colony before you could even get your people on the ground. Now they can't attack you because they can't find you. It makes the Conclave look foolish and weak. And that makes us look better. That's the thinking as I understand it."

Now it was my turn to get angry. "So the Colonial Union is playing hide-and-seek with this Conclave," I said. "That's just jolly."

"Jolly's a word," Stross said. "I don't think it'll be so jolly if they find you, though."

"And how long is that going to take?" I asked. "If this is as much of a blow to the Conclave as you say, they're going to come looking for us."

"You're right about that," Stross said. "And when they find you, they're going to wipe you out. So now it's our job to make you hard to find. And I think this is the part you're really not going to like."

"Point number one," I said, to the representatives of Roanoke colony. "No contact whatsoever between Roanoke colony and the rest of the Colonial Union."

The table erupted into chaos.

Jane and I sat on either ends, waiting for the fracas to calm. It took a few minutes.

"That's insane," said Marie Black.

"I agree entirely," I said. "But every time there's a contact between Roanoke and any other colony world, it leaves a trail back to us. Spaceships have crews that number in the hundreds. It's not realistic that none of those would talk to friends or spouses. And you all already know that people will be looking for us. Your former governments and your families and the press will all be looking for someone who can give them a clue to where we are. If anyone can point a finger back to us, this Conclave will find us."

"What about the Magellan?" asked Lee Chen. "It's going back."

"Actually, no, it's not," I said. This news received a low gasp. I remembered the absolute fury in Captain Zane's face when Stross told him this bit of information. Zane threatened to disobey the order; Stross reminded him be had no control over the ships engines, and that if he and the crew didn't head to the surface with the rest of the colonists, they'd discover they had no control over life support, either. It was a fairly ugly moment.

It got worse when Stross told Zane the plan was to get rid of the Magellan by driving it right into the sun.

"The crew of the Magellan have families back in the CU," said Hiram Yoder. "Spouses. Children."

"They do," I said. "That will give you an idea how serious this is."

"Can we afford them?" asked Manfred Trujillo. "I'm not saying we refuse them. But the colony stores were meant for twenty-five hundred colonists. Now we're adding, what, another two hundred?"

"Two hundred and six," said Jane. "It's not a problem. We shipped with half again as much food stores as are usual for a colony this size, and this world has plant and animal life we can eat. Hopefully."

"How long will this isolation continue?" asked Black.

"Indefinitely," I said. Another grumble. "Our survival depends on isolation. It's just that simple. But in some ways that makes things easier. Seed colonies have to prepare for the next wave of colonists two or three years down the line. We don't have to worry about that now. We can focus on what our needs are. That'll make a difference."

There was glum agreement to this. For the moment that was the best I could hope for.

"Point two," I said, and tensed up for the backlash. "No use of technology that can give away the existence of our colony from space."

This time they didn't calm down after a few minutes.

"That's utterly ridiculous," said Paulo Gutierrez, eventually. "Anything that has a wireless connection is potentially detectable. All you have to do is sweep with a broad-spectrum signal. It'll try to connect with anything and tell you what it finds."

"I understand that," I said.

"Our entire technology is wireless," Gutierrez said. He held up his PDA. "Look at this. Not a single goddamned wired input. You couldn't connect a wire to it if you tried. All our automated equipment in the cargo hold is wireless."

"Forget the equipment," said Lee Chen. "All of my colonists are carrying an implanted locator."

"So are mine," said Marta Piro. "And they don't have an off switch."

"You're going to have to dig them out, then," Jane said.

"That's a surgical procedure," Piro said.

"Where the hell did you put them?" Jane said.

"Our colonists' shoulders," Piro said. Chen nodded at this; his colonists had theirs in the shoulder as well. "It's not a major surgery, but it's still cutting into them."

"The alternative is exposing every other colonist to the risk of being found and killed," Jane said, clipping off her words. "I guess your people are just going to have to suffer." Piro started to open her mouth to respond, but then seemed to think better of it.

"Even if we dig out the locators, there's still every other piece of equipment we have," Gutierrez said, bringing the conversation back around to him. "It's all wireless. Farm equipment. Medical equipment. All of it. What you're telling us is that we can't use any of the equipment we need to survive."

"Not all the equipment in the cargo hold supports a wireless connection," Hiram Yoder said. "None of the equipment we brought with us does. It's all dumb equipment. It all needs a person behind the controls. We make it work just fine."

"You have the equipment," Gutierrez said. "We don't. The rest of us don't."

"We'll share everything we can," Yoder said.

"It's not a matter of sharing," Gutierrez spat. He took a second to calm himself. "I'm sure you would try to help us," he said to Hiram. "But you brought enough equipment for you. There's ten times as many of the rest of us."

"We have the equipment," Jane said. Everyone at the table looked down toward her. "I've sent you all a copy of the ship manifest. You'll see that in addition to all the modern equipment we have, we were also provided with a full complement of tools and implements that were, until today, obsolete. This tells us two things. It tells us that the Colonial Union fully intended for us to be on our own. It also tells us that they don't intend for us to die"

"That's one spin on the subject," Trujillo said. "Another is that they knew they were going to abandon us to this Conclave and rather than give us anything we could use to defend ourselves, told us to keep quiet and keep our heads down, and maybe the Conclave won't hear us." There were murmurs of agreement around the table.

"Now's not the time for that discussion," I said. "Whatever the CU's rationale, the fact is we're here and we're not going anyplace else. When we're on the planet and have the colony sorted, then we can have a discussion on what the CU's strategy means. But for now, we need to focus on what we need to do to survive. Now, Hiram," I said, handing him my PDA. "Among all of us, you are the one who has the best idea of the capability of this equipment for our needs. Is this workable?"

Hiram took the PDA and scrolled through the manifest for several minutes.

"It's hard to say," he said finally. "I would need to see it in front of me. And I would need to see the people who would operate it. And there are so many other factors. But I think we could make it work." He looked up and down the table. "I tell all of you now that whatever I can do to help you, I will. I can't speak for all of my brethren on the matter, but I can tell you that in my experience each of them is ready to answer the call. We can do this. We can make it work."

"There's another option," Trujillo said. All eyes went to him. "We don't hide. We use all the equipment we have—all the resources we have—for our survival. When and if this Conclave comes calling, we tell it we're a wildcat colony. No affiliation with the CU. Its war is with the Colonial Union, not a wildcat colony."

"We'd be disobeying orders," said Marie Black.

"The disconnect works both ways," Trujillo said. "If we need to be isolated, the CU can't check up on us. And even if we are disobeying orders, so what? Are we in CDF? Are they going to shoot us? Are they going to fire us? And beyond that, do we here at this table honestly feel these orders are legitimate? The Colonial Union has abandoned us. Whats more, they always planned to abandon us. They've broken faith with us. I say we do the same. I say we go wildcat."

"I don't think you know what you're saying when you say we should go wildcat," Jane said to Trujillo. "The last wildcat colony I was at had all its colonists slaughtered for food. We found the bodies of children in a stack, waiting to be butchered. Don't kid yourself. Going wildcat is a death sentence." Jane's statement hung in the air for several seconds, daring anyone to refute it.

"There are risks," Trujillo finally said, taking up the challenge. "But we're alone. We are a wildcat colony in everything but name. And we don't know that this Conclave of yours is as horrible as the Colonial Union has made it out to be. The CU has been deceiving us all this time. It has no credibility. We can't trust it to have our interests at heart."

"So you want proof the Conclave means us harm," Jane said.

"It'd be nice," Trujillo said.

Jane turned to me. "Show them," she said.

"Show us what?" asked Trujillo.

"This," I said. From my PDA—which I would soon no longer be able to use—I turned on the large wall monitor and fed it a video file. It showed a creature en a hill or bluff. Beyond the creature was what looked like a smell town. It was bathed entirely in blinding light.

"The village you see is a colony," I said. "It was established by the Whaid, not long after the Conclave told the nonaffiliated races to stop colonizing. The Conclave jumped the gun, because it couldn't enforce its decree at the time. So some of the nonaffiliated races colonized anyway. But now the Conclave is catching up."

"Where is that light coming from?" asked Lee Chen.

"It's coming from the Conclave ships in orbit," Jane said. "It's a terror tactic. It disorients the enemy."

"There's got to be a lot of ships up there," Chen said.

"Yes," Jane said.

The beams of light illuminating the Whaidian colony suddenly snapped off.

"Here it comes," I said.

The killing beams were hardly detectable at first; they were tuned for destruction, not for show, and nearly all their energy went into their targets, not out to the camera. There was only a waver in the air from the sudden heat, visible even at the distance the camera sat.

Then, within a fraction of a second, the entire colony ignited and exploded. Superheated air blew the fragments and the dust of the colony's buildings, structures, vehicles and inhabitants up into the sky in a whirling display that illuminated the power of the beams themselves. The flickering fragments of matter mimicked and mirrored the flames that were now themselves reaching up toward the heavens.

A shock wave of heat and dust expanded out from the charred remains of the colony. The beams flickered off again. The light show in the sky disappeared, leaving behind smoke and flames. Outside the periphery of the destruction, an occasional solitary eruption of flame would appear.

"What is that?" asked Yoder.

"Some of the colonists were outside the colony when it was destroyed, we think," I said. "So they're cleaning them up."

"Christ," Gutierrez said. "With the colony destroyed those people would probably be dead anyway."

"They were making a point," Jane said.

I turned off the video. The room was dead silent.

Trujillo pointed at my PDA. "How did we get that?" he asked.

"The video?" I asked. He nodded. "Apparently, this was hand-delivered to the CU State Department, and to every non-Conclave-affiliated government, by messengers from the Conclave itself."

"Why would they do that?" Trujillo said. "Why would they show themselves committing an… atrocity like this?"

"So there's no doubt they mean what they say," I said. "What this says to me is that no matter what we think of the Colonial Union at the moment, we can't afford to work on the assumption that the Conclave will act reasonably toward us. The CU has thumbed its nose at these guys, and they're not going to be able to ignore that. They're going to come looking for us. We don't want to give them an opportunity to find us." This was met with more silence.

"Now what?" asked Marta Piro. "I think you need to have a vote," I said.

Trujillo looked up, a slight look of incredulity on his face. "I beg your pardon," he said. "I almost thought I heard you say we should have a vote."

"The plan on the table right now is the one we've just put in front of you," I said. "The one that was given to Jane and me. In light of everything, I think it's the best plan we've got for now. But it's not going to work if all of you don't agree. You are going to have to go back to your colonists to explain this. You are going to have to sell this to them. If this colony is going to work, everyone has to be on board with this. Arid that starts with all of you."

I stood up; Jane followed. 'This is a discussion you need to have without us," I said. "We'll be waiting outside." We left. "Is there something wrong?" I asked Jane, as we exited. "Is that a serious question?" Jane snapped. "We're stranded outside of known space waiting for the Conclave to find us and burn us into the ground, and you're asking me if there's something wrong."

"I'm asking if there's something wrong with you," I said. "You were jumping down everyone's throat in there. We're in a bad situation but you and I need to stay focused. And diplomatic, if at all possible."

"You're the diplomatic one," Jane said.

"Fine," I said. "But you're not helping me."

Jane appeared to be counting to ten in her head. And then again. "I'm sorry," she said. "You're right. I'm sorry."

"Tell me what's going on," I said.

"Not now," Jane said. "Later. When we're by ourselves."

"We are by ourselves," I said.

"Turn around," Jane said. I turned. Savitri was there. I turned back to Jane, but she had walked away for a moment.

"Everything okay?" Savitri asked, watching Jane walk off.

"If I knew I would tell you," I said. I waited for a snappy comeback from Savitri. It didn't come, which in itself told me about Savitri's frame of mind. "Has anyone noticed our planet problem?" I asked her.

"I don't think so," Savitri said. "Most people are like you— sorry—and they don't actually know what the planet looks like. Now, your absence has been noted. Yours and all the colony reps' as well. But no one seems to think there's anything sinister about it. You people are supposed to meet and talk about the colony, after all. I do know Kranjic is looking for you, but I think he's just looking for a quote from you about the celebration and the skip."

"Okay," I said.

"Anytime you want to tell me what else is going on, that would be fine, too," Savitri said. I started to give a rote, flip response and froze when I saw the look in her eye. "Soon, Savitri," I said. "I promise. We just have a couple things to work out."

"All right, boss," Savitri said. She relaxed just a little.

"Do me a favor," I said. "Track down Hickory or Dickory for me. I need to talk to them about something."

"You think they know something about this?" Savitri asked.

"I know they know something about this," I said. "I just need to find out how much they know. Tell them to meet me in my quarters later."

"Will do," Savitri said. "I'll find Zoe. They're always within a thirty-meter radius of her. I think it's beginning to annoy her, too. Seems they make her new boyfriend nervous."

"This would be that Enzo kid," I said.

"That's the one," Savitri said. "Nice boy."

"When we land I think I'll have Hickory and Dickory take him for a nice long walk," I said.

"I think it's interesting that in the middle of a crisis you can still think of ways to hamstring a boy sweet on your daughter," Savitri said. "In a twisted way it's almost admirable."

I grinned. Savitri grinned back, which was my hope and intent. "One has to have priorities," I said. Savitri rolled her eyes and left.

A few minutes later Jane reappeared, carrying two cups. She handed one to me. "Tea," she said. "Peace offering."

"Thanks," I said, taking it.

Jane motioned toward the door, where the colony reps were. "Any news?"

"Nothing," I said. "I haven't even been listening in."

"Do you have any plan for what you're going to do if they decide our plan is full of crap?" Jane asked.

"I'm glad you asked," I said. "I haven't the slightest idea what to do then."

"Thinking ahead, I see," Jane said, and sipped her tea.

"Don't sass me," I said. "That's Savitri's job."

"Look. Here comes Kranjic," Jane said, motioning down the hall, where the reporter had appeared, Beata as ever in tow. "If you want, I could just take him out for you."

"But that would leave Beata a widow," I said.

"I don't think she would mind," Jane said.

"We'll let him live for now," I said.

"Perry, Sagan," Kranjic said. "Look, I know I'm not your favorite person, but do you think you might give me a line or two about the skip? I promise I'll make you look nice."

The door to the conference room opened, and Trujillo looked out.

"Hold on, Jann," I said to Kranjic. "I'll have something for you in a minute." Jane and I went back into the conference room; I heard Kranjic give an audible sigh before we closed the door.

I turned to the colonist reps. "Well?" I asked.

"There wasn't much to discuss," Trujillo said. "We've decided that for now, at least, we should do as the Colonial Union suggested."

"Okay, good," I said. "Thank you."

"What we want to know from you now is what we should tell our people," Trujillo said.

"Tell them the truth," Jane said. "All of it."

"You were just saying how the CU has been deceiving us," I said to Trujillo. "Let's not go down the same road."

"You want us to tell them everything," Trujillo said.

"Everything," I said. "Hold that thought." I opened the door and called Kranjic. He and Beata entered the room. "Start with him," I said, gesturing to Kranjic.

They all looked at him.

"So," Kranjic said. "What's up?"

"The Magellan's crew will be the last people down," I said to Jane. I had just come back from a logistics meeting with Zane and Stross; Jane and Savitri had been busy reprioritizing the colony's equipment based on our new situation. But for the moment, it was

just me, Jane and Babar, who as a dog was happily resistant to the stress around him. "After they're down, Stross will set the Magellan to drive itself into the sun. No muss, no fuss, no sign of us."

"What's going to happen to Stross?" Jane said. She wasn't looking at me; she sat at the stateroom table, tapping it gently.

"He said he was going to 'hang out," " I said. Jane looked up at me quizzically. I shrugged. "He's adapted to live in space," I said. "That's what hes going to do. Hs said his doctorate research would keep him busy until someone came to get him."

"He thinks someone is coming to get him," Jane said. "That's optimism for you."

"It's nice someone has optimism," I said. "Although Stross didn't really seem to be the pessimist type."

"Yeah," Jane said. Her tapping changed rhythm. "What about the Obin?"

"Oh, well," I said, remembering my earlier conversation with Hickory and Dickory. "That. Seems the two of them know all about the Conclave, but were forbidden from sharing the information because we didn't know anything about them. Basically, not unlike some spouses of mine I could name."

"I'm not going to apologize for that," Jane said. "It was part of the deal I made to be with you and Zoe. It seemed fair at the time."

"I'm not asking you to apologize," I said, as gently as I could. "I'm just frustrated. From what I read in the files Stross gave us this Conclave has hundreds of races in it. It's the single largest organization in the history of the universe as far as I can see. It's been coming together for decades, since back when I was on Earth. And I learned about its existence only now. I don't know how that's possible."

"You weren't meant to know," Jane said.

"This is something that spans all of our known space," I said. "You can't hide something like this,"

"Of course you can," Jane said, and her tapping suddenly stopped. "The Colonial Union does it all the time. Think about how colonies communicate. They can't talk to each other directly; there's too much space between them. They have to compile their communication and send it in spaceships from one colony to another. The Colonial Union controls all ship travel in human space. All information bottlenecks into the Colonial Union. When you control communication, you can hide anything you want."

"I don't think that's really true," I said. "Sooner or later, everything leaks. Back on Earth—" Jane suddenly snorted. "What?" I asked.

"You," Jane said. " 'Back on Earth.' If any place in human space can be described as profoundly ignorant, it's Earth." She motioned her hand, encompassing the room. "How much of any of this did you know about, back on Earth? Think back. You and every other CDF recruit signed up completely ignorant of how things are out here. You didn't even know how they were going to make it possible for you to fight. The Colonial Union keeps Earth isolated, John. No communication with the rest of the human worlds. No information either way. The Colonial Union doesn't just hide the rest of the universe from Earth. It hides Earth from the rest of the universe."

"It's humanity's home," I said. "Of course the CU wants to keep its profile low."

"For fuck's sake," Jane said, genuinely irritated. "You can't possibly be so stupid as to believe that. The CU doesn't hide Earth because it has sentimental value. The CU hides Earth because it's a resource. It's a factory that spits out an endless supply of colonists and soldiers, none of whom has the smallest idea what's out here. Because it's not in the Colonial Union's interest to have them know. So they don't. You didn't. You were just as ignorant as the rest of them. So don't tell me you can't hide these things. The surprising thing isn't that the Colonial Union hid the Conclave from you. The surprising thing is that it's telling you about it at all."

Jane resumed her tapping for a moment and then slapped her hand down on the table, hard. "Fuck!" she said, and put her head in her hands and sat there, clearly furious.

"I really want to know what's going on with you right now," I said.

"It's not you," she said. "I'm not angry with you."

"That's good to hear," I said. "Although since you just called me ignorant and stupid, you can understand why I wonder if you're telling me the truth about that."

Jane reached out a hand to me. "Come here," she said. I walked over to the table. She put my hand on it.

"I want you to do something for me," she said. "I want you to hit the table as hard as you can."

"Why?" I asked.

"Please," Jane said. "Just do it."

The table was standard carbon fiber with the veneer of printed wood: cheap, durable and not easily breakable. I made my hand into a fist and brought it down hard on the table. It made a muffled thump, and my forearm ached a bit from the impact. The table rattled a bit but was otherwise fine. From the bed, Babar looked over to see what idiocy I was up to.

"Ow," I said.

"I'm about as strong as you," Jane said, tonelessly.

"I suppose," I said. I stepped away from the table, rubbing my arm. "You're in better shape than me, though. You might be a bit stronger."

"Yeah," Jane said, and from her sitting position hammered her hand down on the table. The table broke with a report like a rifle shot. Half the tabletop sheared off and spun across the room, putting a divot in the door. Babar whined and backed himself up on the bed.

I gaped at my wife, who stared impassively at what remained of the table.

"That son of a bitch Szilard," she said, invoking the name of the head of the Special Forces. "He knew what they had planned for us. Stross is one of his people. So he had to know. He knew what we would be up against. And he decided to give me a Special Forces body, whether I wanted one or not."

"How?" I asked.

"We had lunch," Jane said. "He must have put them in my food." Colonial Defense Forces bodies were upgradeable—to an extent—and the upgrades were often accomplished with injections or infusions of nanobots that would repair and improve tissues. The CDF didn't use nanobots to repair normal human bodies, but there was no technical bar to doing it—or using the nanobots to make body changes. "It had to have been a tiny amount. Just enough to get them in me, where more could grow."

A light clicked on my head. "You had a fever."

Jane nodded, still not looking at me. "The fever. And I was hungry and dehydrated the entire time."

"When did you notice this?" I asked.

"Yesterday," Jane said. "I kept bending and breaking things. I gave Zoe a hug and I had to stop because she complained I was hurting her. I tapped Savitri on the shoulder and she wanted to know why I hit her. I felt clumsy all day. And then I saw Stross," Jane almost spat the name, "and I realized what it was. I wasn't clumsy, I was changed. Changed back to what I was. I didn't tell you, because I didn't think it mattered. But since then it's been in my head. I can't get it out of there. I'm changed."

Jane looked up at me, finally. Her eyes were wet. "I don't want this," she said, fiercely. "I left it when I chose a life with Zoe and with you. It was my choice to leave it, and it hurt to leave it. To leave everyone I knew behind." She tapped the side of her head to signify the BrainPal she no longer carried. "To leave their voices behind after having them with me. To be alone like that for the first time. It hurt to learn the limits of these bodies, to learn all the things I couldn't do anymore. I but chose it. Accepted it. Tried to see the beauty of it. And for the first time in my life I knew my life was more than what was directly in front of me. I learned to see the constellations, not just the stars. My life is your life and Zoe's life. All of our lives. All of it. It made it worth everything I left."

I went to Jane and held her. "It's all right," I said.

"No, it's not," Jane said. She gave a small, bitter laugh. "I know what Szilard was thinking, you know. He thought he was helping me—helping us— by making me more than human. He just doesn't know what I know. When you make someone more than human, you make them less than human, too. I've spent all this time learning to be human. And he takes it away without a second thought."

"You're still you," I said. "That doesn't change."

"I hope you're right," Jane said. "I hope that it's enough."