Paul Collins - Earthborn The

Finally Sarah stopped. She raked her scalp. "Rest time. Pull up some dirt." She squatted to one side of the tunnel, out of the thin trickle of evil-smelling amber water that flowed down the center of the causeway.

Welkin sat down facing her. The wall fungus, for all its putrid appearance, was slightly phosphorescent. No doubt one of Earth's many new mutations. Sarah's face looked spectral and relaxed.

He suspected she wasn't resting for her own benefit, but for once his pride took a back seat.

"When Colony left it caused worldwide problems. Now that it's returned it's causing more problems,"

she said. The subject was an annoying itch that she had to scratch.

"You're not that old," Welkin said. "You wouldn't remember—"

Sarah looked amused. "No, I'm not that old. Earth remembers history, too. Colony was built in space, orbiting Mars. It took maybe fifteen years from A to Z."

Welkin leaned forward. "What else do you know about Colony?"

Sarah laughed derisively. "A lot of things your elders wouldn't tell you. Like the corruption that I just told you about. The wealthy obtained berths all right. They knew Earth was going downhill long before Colony reached the planning stages."

"But not everyone was corrupt," Welkin insisted hotly. "You're just saying that!"

"You people have been gone a long time, Welkin. You've got a lot of Earth history to catch up on.

Most of the gritty stuff would've been edited out of your texts."

"They wouldn't do that," Welkin said slowly. He tried to keep his voice steady, but doubt was crowding in at all angles.

"Have it your way. But it's a cert that if Colony passengers had been chosen from a good genetic pool, as they were supposed to be, you would've had a better chance up there. Instead you had inbreeding and more crooks than a convict ship."

Sarah slapped at her forehead in mock anger. "There I go again. Sorry. It's just that the world had so much false hope for that damn hunk of metal."

"We had hope for Earth, too. But as we got closer we picked up random UHF broadcasts." At Sarah's querying look, he explained, "We don't use radio anymore. We employ a variant of what's known as quantum entanglement. Simultaneous transmission." He kicked at a piece of rubble and it went bouncing from one side of the tunnel to the other until it clattered out of sight around a bend. At Sarah's inquisitive look he self-consciously rubbed his boot into the water-worn bluestone pitchers.

"You get a kick out of doing something like that?" Sarah wondered idly. "There's a lot more around.

"Kick 'em all you like."

Welkin hesitated, then pulled his foot back and kicked at another piece of rubble. It too skittered off into the darkness. "Just wondered what it'd be like to kick something. Like they do in vids. And soccer."

"You've led quite a deprived childhood," Sarah said, a tinge of sadness in her voice. "You and everyone on board Colony."

"It wasn't all bad," Welkin said, momentarily forgetting not to show any weakness in front of this Earthborn woman. "Lucida and I used to play the neural sims a lot. Any Earth game we could find."

"Simulators? Like virtual reality games? Stuff in cyberspace?" Welkin held his head up proudly. "Colony technicians advanced virtual reality's technology. You jack into a neural sim and you're actually there.

Facing your opponent." He parted a small patch of hair behind his left ear. She peered closely, saw a metallic implant where an electronic jack would fit. "You can choose weapons, like swords orlasers or even no-holds-barred. The environment is as real as this." He waved his hand at the surrounding tunnel.

Sarah eyed him thoughtfully. "So you could be jacked in right now? Maybe everything that's happening to you here is a mock simulation. The elders could be testing you."

He reacted as if slapped, staring at her in genuine confusion. How would he know? There was no way to tell the difference between a neural matrix environment and a real one.

Maybe Sarah was right, maybe the elders were testing his loyalty. He could still be sitting in that prison cell where they questioned him after Harry was arrested. The thought chilled him thoroughly. For a moment, he didn't know what he feared more: that all this was real, or wasn't.

He looked down at his swollen ankles, at his hands scraped raw from feeling their weary way through the dimly lit tunnels.

"I don't believe it."

"Good for you. Reality can be lethal. Best you take it seriously." She changed the subject. "How much technical training do you have? Can you repair radio equipment?"

"I don't know. That's kinda prehistoric," Welkin said. "Besides, the last two years on Colony everything was pretty much geared to arriving here."

"Something puzzles me. I don't see how your people could've kept going with two halves of the ship in opposing hands."

He took a deep breath. "Military personnel commandeered the main cruise cabin. From there they diverted the power banks, activated the bulkheads, and sealed a perimeter around us. Then they systematically sought out individual pockets of resistance and—"

"Okay. I get the picture. But they didn't get everyone, did they? The people on the lower decks, what are they like?"

"Barbarians."

"Like me."

"I didn't say that. They eat people. Like the ferals."

"So the elders tell you," Sarah said.

"It's true!" Welkin pushed away from the wall and scowled at her. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides.

"Relax. You'll give yourself an aneurysm," Sarah said. A half smile played on her lips. She got up and with a casual flick of her head motioned for him to follow. "Let's go. I just needed a little time with you before you meet the others. Everything's going to be fine."

Despite her reassuring tone, she was worried. She wasn't quite sure how her family would react. She knew she was taking a risk. Leaders of families weren't voted in or out. Usually, they outlived the previous incumbent, though "outlived" could take on several meanings. This kid was potentially a boon, but just as likely could turn into a liability—a gimp. Too dangerous to keep. Maybe too dangerous to let go. That was one thought she would keep to herself for now!

She glanced at him as he struggled over a fallen drainage pipe. He was pallid, his skin almost translucent. She could see bright blue veins through the jagged tears in his suit. They had no sun up there.

No doubt they had solaria, but why keep using them for three hundred years? Sun-replicating lightbulbs would provide vitamin D without the potential long-term hazards of UV radiation. Many earlier Earth cultures had also shunned the sun, had created elites who prided themselves on their pale superiority.

Only the lowborn were tanned. Those who worked out-of-doors, who labored to support the pale ones.

Perhaps that's what the elders planned for Earth in the long term. A comfy, cozy life for the Skyborn while the worthless Earth scum worked the fields to feed them.

She wondered why she had rescued him. Did she need him? Would the others resent his presence after Kenny-H and Bilbo had been killed by the colonists? Certainly the ferals would have killed him straight out. But then, they weren't terribly bright. Would the others accept him?

He presented a problem, all right. He was a walking contradiction. The product of a highly sophisticated, technological, and proud society but one whose frontier skills were lacking, who had become soft with time and easy mechanized living. Yet he possessed something that was more precious to Sarah than food and weapons: knowledge. And not just knowledge of technology. He knew better than anybody living among the Earthborn just what heights humans could aspire to. On Earth, such dreams had died out long ago. Many, like theferals, saw themselves on some almost mystical level as no better than the animals that rend one another over food. Could a feral dream of the resurrection of humankind?