Half Way Home

“We’ve been falling more and more off schedule. The enforcers make sure we get back on.” He raised a finger and twirled it in a large circle above his head. “We’ve got flood lights going up today so we can work later into the evening. And with the gift we received the other day, nobody should go hungry as we wrap this project up.”

“Wrap it up?” I asked. “Don’t we need to be thinking about the long haul? Where’s the power for these floodlights gonna come from? We’re rationing energy here in the very module that’s suppose to make it.”

“We’re cutting juice back from the security perimeter. There hasn’t been any sign of predators—” Oliver stopped and looked me up and down. “Jeez, Porter, you sound pretty tense. Is everything alright? Do you need some spiritual guidance to get you through these dark times?”

I laughed, then felt bad for doing so as I saw a spasm of pain in Oliver’s cheeks. “No,” I said. “I’m fine. I just—I guess some of us are finding it hard to sacrifice so much for a project we aren’t really being told anything about.”

Oliver nodded. “I understand,” he said. “You scientists are always the first to become doubters.”

“It isn’t that, it’s just—”

Oliver raised his hand. “I’m here to talk, to help you, but not to listen. I don’t want you filling my head with any… whatever—” He turned to go.

“Oliver, wait. I didn’t mean to—”

He turned, his face twisted up in an expression of pure rage that brought me to a halt. “Colony gave you life,” he spat. “Don’t you understand that? It taught you everything you know. None of us would even be here without it. If everything had gone perfect, if there were a half thousand of us clearing these lands and breeding like animals, would you question your existence then? Would you curse the person who made you and taught you how to live your life? Or would you carry on building yourself a better world in the service of Colony and country?”

“I don’t see—”

“I know you don’t, Porter. You don’t see what’s going on. No matter what happens here, some of us have it in our hearts to obey and some have the compulsion to rebel. I bet if I were telling you to farm these lands, you would be out building yourself a rocket. We should probably be using some of that—oh, what do you call it?”

“Reverse psychology?” I asked.

“Yeah, some of that.” Oliver jabbed his finger at me. “You know, you’ve been miserable since the day we were born, and that’s probably your lot in life, but not me. I know the glory of the gods, and I will work in their service. I’ve been an enforcer of that since day one, with or without this,” he said, slapping at the gun on his waist.

“You need to search your heart,” Oliver told me. “Figure out what you’re working toward. Get right with the gods.”

He turned and stormed off.

I just watched him go, feeling sorry for him. Then damning him for assaulting me the way he had. For planting a seed of doubt—

••••

That night provided the first glimpse of our new life, in all the harshness of ten-thousand watt bulbs. After dinner, we were ordered back to our stations to work until we met the day’s quota. For our group, that meant finishing the three firing rocket phases attached to the end of the payload body. In order to get the package wherever it was going, three separate canisters full of two-part propellant would need to fire before dropping away. Those of us not really qualified to consider ourselves “scientists” worked on that, while another group soldered together the circuits that made up the navigation array.

While we worked, one of the guys that used to be with construction—a big lad I’d seen Kelvin speak to during meals—stood by the door, one hand resting on his gun. It was strange how readily we just went along with his presence, most of us publicly accepting the new rules with a shrug, only to bitch and moan once nobody could hear. Muriel, the girl helping me plumb the mixing valves for each of the three tanks, slept in the same module as the guy enforcing us. Several times, she tried to strike up a conversation, asking him how he was enjoying his new job, but he never replied. What little joy there was in our payload group—the jokes and gossip that gave us a tune to work by—had been sucked right out of the power module. Sapped like the energy being diverted from the defense grid to feed the demanding lights.

So we worked in a silence punctuated by the occasional grunt of frustration from someone in our group. Every now and then, a bombfruit whistled outside and all of us cringed in fear. Even though there was a roof overhead to protect us.

• 11 • The Break

It’s amazing how quickly you get used to things. My head was full of an education on how to help brains on the verge of breaking, but all I’d seen around me was them bending more and more under a growing strain and somehow remaining whole. For all the studying I’d done on the fragility of a thing, here I was a witness and example of its incredible perseverance.

Another thing I noticed was how quickly the human brain paired causal events. “A” leads to “B.” We love to make that link, however tenuous. Like how Tarsi hits people when she’s joking. As soon as she slaps someone, you can expect her odd little laugh to follow. The one event follows the other like clockwork. Kelvin and I make fun of the habit, telling her we aren’t going to laugh on command anymore. That’s why we think she does it, like a little threat of violence if we don’t find the last thing she said humorous.

Still, the harder we try not to laugh, the more we end up doing it. Harder and more often of late, it seemed, despite the longer days and the less time we spent together. More evidence of our bending without breaking.

The whistle of the bombfruit was another of those causal pairs. After the whistle, there was usually a bang. Often, it was the softer thud of the rind exploding as it hit the mud, the dirt mixing with our next meal. But sometimes, it was the booming report of a large bombfruit hitting something metal. The next day, a dining group might find a new dent in their gold table and breakfast already spread out, dutifully tended to by a variety of little worms.

Whistle followed by explosion. Like clockwork. There was always the warning of the first before the bang of the latter. The in-between time was spent tensed up, waiting.

My nerves, then, were not prepared when the sounds reversed themselves. It was late at night, and my group was struggling along to meet its quota. Several of us worked outside joining pipes—not just to keep the fumes of our welding irons away from the others, but because of the ironic state of our lighting. The bulbs outside burned brighter than the dim flickering within the power module, which struggled to keep up with demand.

The explosion came without warning. A loud boom. My entire body twitched, and I dropped my iron. We all looked at each other, wondering what had happened. Then the high-pitched screaming started. The two noises had come in the wrong order.

I left my iron in the dirt and ran toward the source, trying to keep up with Muriel, who had taken off immediately.

The wail emanated from the direction of the launch pad. Other colonists converged on it as well, despite the shouts from enforcers to return to our stations. One of them raised his gun and fired a shot straight up.

I cringed, then I realized the sound from the gun was the same as the one we’d heard earlier. The whistling noise was distant shrieks, which grew louder as we stumbled down the slope toward the rocket site.

Several enforcers stood together, their gleaming guns drawn. Hickson came running up to join them, shouting questions. Stephany, one of the girls I knew through Kelvin, sat in the dirt, screaming. She held someone in her lap—an eerie recreation of what I’d come upon the day Stevens died. The boy was large and unmoving, and for a second I thought it was Kelvin, but then I saw him drop down from the scaffolding.

“What did you do?” Stephany shrieked, rocking back and forth. I ran to her, joining Julie—a nurse who had become, by default, the base’s doctor.

The boy had both hands pressed to his stomach, vainly attempting to staunch the flow of blood. His chest