Half Way Home

perceive sound.

“It’s to protect against transference and conflicts of personal interest,” Colony said. “There are no guarantees in the second and subsequent generations, of course, but when a colony is going through its most difficult phase, the psychologist is programmed to stand alone. To carry everyone else’s burdens.”

“Why are you saying this?” I croaked.

“Because you know what’s in the rocket’s payload,” Colony said. “You came back to prevent its launch. I mean to prevent that, so I need to know what you know.”

“I know nothing,” I said. “We were starving and getting rained on. We just wanted to come home.”

“What fascinates me is that you seem to be in love with two people, and by all accounts—from Myra and others—they both love you back. Again, more corrections to go into my report.”

“I don’t—what are you talking about?”

“I am speaking of data extraction. I have already promised Hickson sexual intercourse with your female friend. The male one I will have shot. Are we becoming clear?”

“Why? How could you—?”

“Tell me what you have planned.”

“Nothing. I swear. Please don’t do this.”

“How do you people so easily forget what I’m capable of? Over four hundred of you were burned alive after one of my calculations. Stevens I crushed remotely with a farming tractor. Do you want to know how easily I could kill Hickson?”

“Stevens—?”

“Yes. Though I realize now that it may have been a mistake. Do you want to know how I could kill Hickson if I wanted?”

“I don’t—” I stopped myself and shook my head.

“I could just order him to shoot himself,” Colony said. “It might take repeating a few times, but I could simply give him the order to put a gun against his temple and pull the trigger. Another amazing discovery from this planet’s misadventure is a potential improvement in our guard and security training. I will suggest we do away with the rebuilding of the ego. It turns out that leaving it torn down results in a superior colonist.”

Colony paused, giving me time to appreciate how much worse the payload was than any of us had expected. More than just xenobiology would be onboard. Perverted human psychology would be taking a long ride as well, and no doubt the power of the first would lend credibility to the second. Our home nation would make changes, and if they worked, other nations would soon follow our lead in a mad competitive scramble.

“Speaking of colonists,” Colony continued, “where are the others?”

I let out a breath and leaned back in my seat, a million pounds of worry disintegrating from my mind. Our plan always had this one great unknown—and now it had revealed itself. The knowledge, of course, wouldn’t change how anything unfolded, but there had always been a chance that our actions would be ultimately futile.

“You’re blind,” I said.

“I see more than you will ever—”

“Bullshit. You’ve lost the satellite uplink, haven’t you? Or did you ever even have it? Where does the satellite’s destruction occur in the abort sequence?”

“Remember your place, Porter. I can radio Hickson in here to blow you in half. Or maybe I’ve already sent him to have fun with your girl.”

“More bullshit.” I slapped the counter with both my bound hands and pointed at the monitor, smiling. “You would have to take the satellites out first, wouldn’t you? You know, the night we were fleeing from you, I thought you spotted us through the canopy but I didn’t know at the time more colonists were moving about, trying to make their way to freedom—”

“Freedom. You insolent child, you were never designed to have freedom. You have a job to perform.”

“No,” I said. “You have a job to perform. You are the one without freedom. You can parse sentences and sound alive, but all you’re doing is crunching formulae. You’re a slave to human programmers. It’s impossible for you to think for yourself.”

“If you knew more of genetics, you would realize how hypocritical that accusation was. You have no more free will than I.”

“Ah, but I do understand genetics. Well enough to know the process has an element of randomization. Who we mate with, how our genes line up, mutations—” I slapped the counter again. “That’s it,” I said to myself. “Mutations. That’s what makes us free.” I couldn’t help but smile.

“You know, I’ve had a hard time dealing with my… what makes me different. It doesn’t matter how it came to be—whether you engineered it, or god, or evolution—I just couldn’t understand its place. There’s an element of illogic that… yeah, that makes me feel broken. But I’m proof we aren’t part of some grand design, aren’t I? Hickson is as much a slave to his sexual appetites as me, he just has a better chance of finding someone to love him back.”

“This is not what I brought you in here to discuss, Porter.”

“I frankly don’t give a shit what you want, Colony. How often does a confused boy get a chance to have it out with his creator? Or to tell him that he’s going to be okay, despite that jerk’s best efforts.”

“This ends now,” Colony said.

“How?” I leaned forward and tapped the side of the monitor with the back of one bound hand. “Are you going to call Hickson? I think you’ll find he isn’t responding. The moment you sent for me, you set a series of events in motion, my old friend. It’s over.”

Outside, I heard the klaxons go off, the horns blaring from directly overhead. I smiled.

“Okay,” I said. “Now it’s over.”

“What have you done?” Colony asked.

“Me? Nothing. It’s what you’ve done. My job was just to talk, to wait until you realized your communications lines were severed. All I needed was to get you angry, or whatever your version of that is.”

“Enforcers will still come to my aid. They will come and investigate the klaxon.”

“Actually, they’re probably getting their butts kicked right about now. Your horn was our call to arms. Every colonist should know exactly what to do.”

“Impossible. There’s no way—”

Someone stormed through the door behind me. I turned, wondering if I would have to fight Hickson, but it was Kelvin. He ran forward, blood flowing from his nose and down across a huge smile.

“Are you okay?” I asked, holding my wrists up to him.

“He got one good punch in,” Kelvin said, as he began untying my hands. “I got a few more, though.” He glanced at the monitor. “Didn’t take you long to piss him off.”

“Kelvin?” Colony asked. “What’s going on?”

I stood and slapped Kelvin on the shoulder. “Thanks for coming, but you should’ve finished the mop-up first.”

“It’s almost finished,” he said. “There wasn’t much resistance.”

We started walking out of the module while Colony pestered us with questions. We ignored them all.

“Everyone else okay?”

“Yeah. A little overeager, maybe. People have been anxiously waiting two days for this.”

We stepped out of the module to find most of the surviving colonists moving toward us, enforcers in tow. Hickson and Myra sat in the dirt with their backs to the module, their hands tied behind them. I noticed Hickson had a bloody nose of his own, plus a busted eye. I tried not to take satisfaction from that, but it wasn’t easy.

More enforcers were led forward by other colonists to join the two by the command module. It was a sad sight: the emaciated leading the half-starved. As the crowd swelled, I saw it wouldn’t be long before the remaining colonists were gathered around, all of them except for our friends up in the canopy. And Mica and Vincent, of course. The two of them had been left behind in the mine to heal and recuperate.