Нэнси Кресс - Terran Tomorrow

Of course, the refuseniks could hole up in the dome, sealing themselves in, living off the stored crops, while New America plundered their fields and burned the kelp farm. Maybe they could outlast the enemy, who was not known for patience. But unlike Monterey Base, which used converters to create freshwater from air, the anti-tech Settlement obtained all its water from the river above the falls. If the enemy dammed or poisoned the river, the holdouts would soon run out of water. Also, Jason doubted that they would actually seal themselves into the dome and stay there. The moment they couldn’t actually see an enemy soldier, they’d go outside because going outside was the entire point of their existence. “Live free on the Earth.” And then New America would shoot more of them and maybe take the dome again.

Jason said into his mic, “Goldman, Kowalski, Hillson—everyone goes onto the Return , by force if necessary. Hillson, radio Major Duncan to prepare for about two hundred temporary refugees.” He flicked off the mic and, prepared for battle, turned to Lindy.

She said, “You did the right thing,” and turned toward the next wounded Settler, leaving Jason staring after her.

Damn it, Lindy, you can still surprise me.

Luke suddenly cried out. He heard it first—the Superhearers always heard everything first—and dropped to the ground. Jason seized Lindy, threw her down, and hurled himself on top of her. A second later the explosion shattered the air.

But no flying debris, no smoke, and the ship—the first thing Jason raised his head to see—was intact. The explosion had been inside the dome, contained by it, its rounded top no longer clear but darkened with ash. Smoke drifted out the open airlock.

J Squad had sprinted to defensive position, but there was no one to defend against, no one to attack. New America had set off a delayed-action bomb—probably more than one—inside the dome, timed to allow them to murder and loot. Jason knew without checking that nothing would be left except the indestructible alien-energy walls that divided the dome into quadrants. Plants, seeds, tools, living quarters, hand looms, candles and homemade soap and carved wooden bowls and every other seventeenth-century contrivance—all destroyed. Anyone returning here to live would have to start completely over, from nothing. Still—Colin was capable of that.

He stood. Lindy scrambled to her feet beside him, putting a hand on Luke’s shoulder. Her green eyes were wide.

Jason said grimly, “At the base, the Settlers will all have to accept military rule.”

“Yes,” she said, and he was surprised to feel her fingers brush his hand before she ran toward the FiVee.

Marianne sat with Ryan beside Colin’s bedside. Colin, freshly out of OR and still sedated, slept deeply in one of the tiny, windowless rooms in Lab Dome that had actually been intended to be part of the infirmary. Less severely wounded people were jammed into a makeshift ward nearby. Because every single Settler was contaminated with RSA, they had had to be brought in batches through decon, even the dangerously wounded.

Marianne and Ryan shared a wooden bench, dragged into Colin’s room from the Army mess. Luke lay curled asleep on the floor, his huge body taking up most of the floor space. He’d refused to leave Colin.

To Marianne, the entire scene felt unreal. Ryan was now only three years younger than she was, and looked ten years older. His right hand shook with Parkinson’s. After he’d asked about Noah and his family on World, Ryan fell silent. He’d always been a quiet, even secretive, person, but as he gazed at his younger son without speaking, his left hand rested on Marianne’s and she was comforted by its veiny, callused touch.

She said, “Lindy says that Colin will be all right.”

Ryan nodded.

If Marianne wanted information from him, she was going to have to pry it out. “What went wrong between her and Jason?”

“I didn’t ask, Mom.”

“But you know.”

Long silence. Then merely, “Jason and Colin are very different people.”

She wanted to say Duh . She did not. Was “duh” even understood slang anymore? She said instead, “When did Jason grow such a turtleplate?”

“A what?”

“A hard shell. Colin was always a gentle kid, but Jason wasn’t always this hard.”

Another long silence. When Ryan did speak, it clearly cost him pain. “You don’t know what the Collapse was like, Mom. People dying, dead in just a few hours, nearly everyone. The cities were full of stinking corpses, industry gone overnight, some places with just a handful of survivors in an entire town. People reacted in different ways. They gave up, or started fighting each other, or went crazy, or started organizing what was left. Jason was already a major in the Army. He took control of Monterey Base, which had been under a dome less than one year. Everybody above him in the chain of command was dead. He sealed the base and used copters to bring in scientists from all over California, either before they were infected or after they survived, along with any surviving families. He sent soldiers in esuits to get whatever additional equipment the scientists asked for, plus more supplies and weapons and I don’t know what all. He moved fast and efficiently, and he made enemies doing it because he could not take in everyone, and because some people wanted to mourn instead of moving on. He did what he had to, and none of us might be here at all if it weren’t for him.”

Ryan stopped. Marianne waited, sensing there was more to come.

Finally Ryan said, “Some of what he did might be called brutal. Was called brutal. His first goal was to not contaminate the base with RSA, because he needed the scientists who were not immune to stay alive and find a way to combat the weaponized disease. He kept out sick people begging to get in. They died, some of them, just outside the airlock, including children. Lindy wanted to go out in an esuit and do what she could to at least ease their dying, but he wouldn’t let her, even though she’s an RSA survivor. He couldn’t risk some crazy survivor killing one of his two doctors. He instituted strict control of the birds brought into Lab Dome for research, and he enforced it with weapons when he had to.”

She said, startled, “There are RSA-bearing birds inside Lab Dome?”

“There’s a biohazard lab in the underground annex, with its own decon. Not a biohazard level 4, unfortunately, but an engineer rigged up negative pressure. Everybody allowed to work there is an RSA survivor, I’m told, which pissed off some scientists who aren’t and feel their hands are tied, relatively.”

Ryan had once been a scientist, too, long ago. A botanist concerned with invasive species, especially purple loosestrife. Not relevant now.

He went on, “When the war started with New America, I think Jason did… other things. I’m not sure what. But that’s when Lindy left him. She doesn’t understand that Jason is doing what he thinks is necessary. So is Colin. Mom—what about this virophage you brought back from World?”

She could have asked why Ryan chose to live with Colin instead of at the base, but she didn’t. Ryan’s tone said he was done discussing his sons. She said, “Zack McKay told me that the virophage from our tissues has proved useless against the weaponized version of R. sporii . The leelees—that’s an animal native to World—aboard the Return were also infected with both virus and virophage, but they all died when Terran air filled the ship. The cultures that Claire and I made on ship died, too. None of us refugees is going to be much help to Zack and his people.”

“You are a help. You brought the ship.”