Нэнси Кресс - Terran Tomorrow

But Jason turned out to be the one who was most vulnerable.

She said, “How badly is he hurt? I want the truth, Lindy.”

“Not very. Of course, surgery is always a risk, but he should be okay. He should have been wearing body armor, but he probably thought it would send the wrong message—Marianne, they shot him! One of his own men! Don’t they know how hard he’s struggled to hold this base together, to do the right thing, even now that… Did you know about this? The birds and the forced exodus?”

Exodus. Biblical. No, not biblical—older than that. What Jason was forcing on Earth was Promethean science, an ambitious experimental enterprise to counteract a major threat, a science which pits potential pay-offs against huge risks. Marianne, who had herself engaged in Promethean science on World, understood.

She said truthfully, “If I had thought about it, I would have known what Jason would do. But I’ve been thinking about something else. Thomas Farouk and I… Lindy, I need to talk to Jason. Can I do that before he goes under anesthesia?”

“No, of course not. What is it? Tell me.”

“I can’t. On second thought, it will wait. It’s already waited a hundred and forty thousand years.”

Lindy stared at her. “Are you okay?”

Was she? Were any of them? “Yes. Just get Jason well. We only have two days.”

Someone tapped her on the shoulder. Marianne turned to the sergeant who seemed to always accompany Jason, an older man with bristly gray hair above a face that gave nothing away. Except right now.

“Dr. Jenner, ma’am, I’m Master Sergeant Hillson, Colonel Jenner’s aide. Will he be all right?”

“I’m told that he will be.”

Hillson nodded. “Good. I need to talk to you, ma’am. About the Awakened.”

“What about them?”

“They’re all leaving on the Return ,” he said, with no uncertainty. “All of them, no exceptions. Colonel Jenner was going to talk to them to make sure they understand that. He can’t, now. So you have to.”

She considered him. Hillson was going to carry out Jason’s orders even if he, she, and everybody else died doing it. Marianne had barely had time to consider those orders, including what it would mean to return to the alien planet she had left, in her personal time stream, less than three months ago. Three months and twenty-eight years.

“Ma’am?” He was immovable as mountains.

“All right,” she said. “Get all the Awakened together in the conference room.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. It was fortunate that he didn’t salute; she might have tried to slug him. From nerves, from fear, from frustration. When was the last time her life had been under her own control?

Maybe it never had. She no longer knew, not since she and Farouk had worked out their theory.

Twenty-eight.

Jane didn’t need to count how many people had jammed into the conference room. She felt the shape and color of the crowd, and she knew. She felt, too, the colors and shapes of their bafflement, fear, and rage, as well as her own sorrow over leaving Colin.

Twenty-eight people: twenty-five of the thirty who had already awakened. Three parents of v-coma children: Zack McKay, and Fiona and Karl James, whose little boy lay comatose in the infirmary, under guard. The twenty-eight sat on chairs or leaned against the walls, scientists and soldiers and Settlers and a kitchen worker. Facing them, looking determined and exhausted, stood Marianne Jenner. Her determination was jagged-edged and dark blue, and in it Jane felt clearly her resemblance to Jason.

“I am here on behalf of Colonel Jenner, who is in surgery,” Marianne said. “I’m here to listen to all your ideas about leaving Earth. but I need to tell you up front: This is not an undecided debate. We are all going to World. We—no, wait, please, give me a moment to finish—represent too great a threat to Earth. As Colonel Jenner said, if we transmit the virophage to New America, whoever contracts it will gain the same enhanced intelligence that all of you have. They will devise new weapons and new ways to cause destruction, because their intelligence—like yours—will grow along whatever pathways are already prominent in their brains. Those are pathways of aggression and hatred. If you think that Terra is hell now, it is nothing compared to what three or four generations of vicious and narcissistic conquerors can make it. Sadists equipped with the physics of Dr. Farouk, the biology of Dr. Yu’s team. They will—”

“I don’t care!” Karl James shouted. “We’re not leaving Earth! We’ll take our chances here!”

“I’m not going, either,” Toni Steffens said, more quetly but with even more determination. Jane wanted to shrink from the deadly shapes that Dr. Steffens made.

“Marianne, consider,” Toni Steffens continued. “If Earth is going to recover, it needs the intelligence that the Awakened can bring. We can use it to counter New America’s wars, to aid in Earth’s ecological recovery, to return humanity to a viable civilization much more quickly. If intelligence is a weapon, it can also be a force for good. Surely even Colonel Jenner can see that!”

“Yes,” Marianne said, “he can. But it’s a question of risk versus benefit. The risks here outweigh the benefits. And, Karl James, your child was born in Monterey Base and isn’t immune to RSA. How could you stay here with him anyway?”

“Use your so-called super IQ to figure that out instead of kidnapping us!” Karl yelled, and Jane saw that he was past rational argument, beside himself with fear and anger.

For the first time, she saw the use of that strange Terran phrase. Karl James was two shapes in her mind, superimposed on each other: one spiky and the color of blood, the other muddy and puddled as dirty water.

A woman near the back of the room cried, “I’m not going, either!”

Then everyone was talking, voices rising higher and higher with objections, with reasoning, with emotion, with such overwhelming noise that Jane slipped from the room, slightly surprised that the soldiers guarding the door let her go. And then not surprised at all….

It didn’t really matter what was said here. Jane knew what would happen. She’d known it the moment she’d seen the shapes of Marian Jenner. Of Zack McKay, of the two members of J squad who were Awakened. All of them felt like Jason.

The decision had been made.

“No pain pills,” Jason said.

Lindy frowned. “You were shot . You are not going to feel good for a while. If pain interferes with your thinking and—”

“It won’t. Is the bullet out?”

“Of course the bullet is out! You just had fucking surgery! Oh… no, Jason, you can’t… stay still!”

Jason stayed still. Lindy stood beside his bed in the infirmary. She was the first, but Jason knew that beyond the door would be a whole horde of people who would want to see him: his father and grandmother, Hillson, Colin, Duncan, Li, Ka^graa. But Lindy first, Lindy always first, and he took a minute he didn’t have to meet her eyes steadily and ask.

“Lindy… are you going with me? On the Return ?”

Her eyes opened wide. “You’re going? I mean, you’re really going to do this insane thing?”

“It’s not insane and yes, I’m going.”

She said slowly, “There is a rumor that the convoy from Fort Hood is coming to arrest you and take over Monterey Base. That there isn’t any other reason they would send so many troops. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“Is that the—”

“ No , it’s not the reason I’m going on the ship. I’m going because I started this and I need to finish it. I’m going because I have to be sure that everyone who could spread the virophage isn’t in a position to do so. World is already infected, the entire damn planet. I’m going because Major Farouk thinks he’s cracked the spaceship physics and we can, in time, build more ships and colonize the stars. I’m going because—”