Нэнси Кресс - If Tomorrow Comes

Marianne played with Lily every chance she could. She talked with Noah, got to know Llaa^moh¡. Her long-lost son, wonderful daughter-in-law, precious grandchild. Every time Marianne thought of leaving them, her heart flamed with pain.

But she had two other children and two other grandchildren, and this was not her world. She had never really thought it was. Marianne was going home.

“Is he ever coming out?” Austin asked Graa^lok. He meant Tony, of course. The boys talked endlessly about Tony, about Haven, about all that had happened. That’s how they referred to it: “the all.” Probably nothing so exciting would ever happen on World again.

Well, that might be okay.

“He’ll come out,” Graa^lok said. “Someday. Probably he’s waiting until the Rangers are gone so they won’t punish him for… the all. Austin—”

“I’m not going to Terra!” Austin said fiercely, as he had said a hundred times before. “They can’t make me! I’ll run away! I’ll go back to Haven! I’ll make Leo throw bombs down the airshaft to get me out, like Lieutenant Lamont did!”

“Leo-mak wouldn’t do it,” Graa^lok said. He had lost weight, eaten by guilt over his part in “the all.”

This was true. Leo wouldn’t do it. But Graa^lok was missing the point. “I’m not going,” Austin repeated.

“Your mother wants to go.”

This, unfortunately, was also true. The chance to return to Terra had made Kayla happier than anything else had in years. Maybe ever. “I know she’s going,” Austin said miserably. “But I can’t go, Graa^lok. I just can’t. I live here. I wouldn’t have any friends there, or a lahk except for Mom, or anything.”

The boys fell silent, unable to picture life without a lahk.

“They can’t make me go,” Austin said.

Graa^lok said nothing, staring down at his sandals to hide his expression.

The night before launch, the camp was again deserted. Apparently the Kindred felt the need to let the Terrans be alone with the ship. Leo didn’t understand that and didn’t try, but he was glad about it. He wanted to be alone.

He walked out from the compound across the field to the north, passing two groups of skaleth¡. One lay asleep in a clump, as they always did, looking like a football pile-on trying to recover the ball. The other group stood cropping grass, also in unison. On Kindred, “herd animals” applied to more than humans.

“I greet you, skaleth¡,” Leo said, in Kindese. The animals ignored him.

The ship loomed dark against a field of stars. Leo put his hand on the hull, which felt cool and smooth. Inside were supplies, pallets, room enough for a whole colony of people instead of the few that were going.

Five Kindred, two of them scientists, including boss scientist Ka^graa. Only five. Leo knew now what it cost Kindred to leave their lahks, but these had chosen to go. Some people, Terran or Kindred, were always what Dr. Jenner called “outliers”: different enough from their own culture to go off seeking another one. Ka^graa, whose wife was dead, was taking with him his oldest daughter. The mother of her lahk had agreed.

Kandiss was going. He had wanted to leave Kindred since the minute he first set foot on it. The Seventy-Fifth Regiment was his life, and he was going back to it.

Dr. Jenner and Branch Carter were going. So was Dr. Patel, who’d said she’d be needed to oversee the microbe adjustment necessary for the Kindred to live on Terra and the Terrans to get their original microbes back. Leo, remembering what that involved, winced. But it was necessary if you wanted to go home.

Kayla Rhinehart was going. She hated Kindred worse than even Kandiss did. Although it was Leo’s unspoken opinion that Kayla would be a pain in the ass wherever she went. Kayla raised the question, though, of Austin. The kid kept yelling that he wasn’t leaving Kindred, and then the next minute watching his mother like he had to take care of her no matter what. Terrible to make a kid responsible for a parent like that—it should be the other way around. Not that Leo had ever personally known either arrangement.

He didn’t know what would happen with Austin. And that raised the question of Isabelle, who had also always taken care of Kayla. Leo and Isabelle had avoided each other these past weeks. A lot of the time she was gone, working on the Council of Mothers to rebuild Kindred’s government. Leo supposed she was also grieving for Salah Bourgiba, as well as for her planet. He’d gotten his language instruction from Austin, which gave the kid something to do since he refused to return to school and nobody had actually made him do so.

Noah Jenner, his wife, and their little girl would stay on Kindred, of course.

And Zoe? She had looked Leo straight in the eyes and said, “You tell me first, Leo.” He could have pushed her for an answer, but he didn’t. He already knew it. She had had at least five conversations with him, spread over their weeks on Kindred, about how tough it would be to skip twenty-eight years on Earth. Maybe more than five, if you counted sideways hints. But Zoe was a soldier—if her CO told her to return to Terra, she would. If not—

The wind picked up, that wind that had saved so many lives, bringing to Leo the same spicy scent of fruit and leaves as when he arrived. Weird to have no seasons. No seasons, no other continents, no other languages, so many restrictions on having kids and not having normal tech and not making too much money. Weird to give away a big chunk of what you did have, every illathil. And still pay taxes. Weird to live by bu^ka^tel, which Leo still didn’t really understand. Weird and unnatural and—

Isabelle came across the starlit field toward him.

He knew it was her long before he could make out her face. He knew by her gait, by the way she held her head, by her Isabelleness. His heart began a slow, steady thud like a dance beat, or a dirge.

“I greet you, Leo,” she said in Kindese.

“I greet you, Isabelle,” he said in the same language.

Then, for what seemed a very long time, neither spoke. Finally Leo could stand it no longer. His lips felt dry, but he got out one word. “Austin?”

“He’s staying here.”

“Poor kid.” Leo meant it.

“You understand, don’t you, his dilemma. Either choice, he loses something.”

“Well, that’s always how it goes, isn’t it?”

For answer, she moved into his arms. Her lips were soft and full and sweeter than anything had ever been before in his life. But after one long kiss, he held her slightly away from him and braced himself for another loss. If that had been a good-bye kiss….

He said, “Your sister?”

“To Terra. You knew that.”

“And if Austin isn’t going to take care of her, are you?”

“No. I belong here, Leo. And… and you?”

“I’m staying. I sort of think I’m needed here. Even though that sounds so full of ego shit.”

“It’s not. World does need you. And so do I.”

So not a good-bye kiss. Leo seized her again and held her close. They would stay here, and he would learn this planet and organize some sort of army that could protect it if the Russians ever returned. Or if the Kindred “no war” tradition changed. This planet needed an army; it just didn’t know that yet. He’d have Lu^kaj^ho to help him recruit, and Zoe to help train new units. If he stayed, Zoe would, and it would be a good thing to have your best friend as second in command.

Owen…

No. This was different. Owen was over. This was a new day, and he and Isabelle had places in this new world and work to do. Separately, and together.

The ship lifted. Marianne watched a planet fall away below, as she had twice before. On the Endeavor , on the Friendship , and now on the Return .