38
From an altitude of a kilometer and a half, Julia saw deep into the verdant continent and far out to sea. (About five thousand feet, she reminded herself. She had gotten spoiled by Earth’s metric system. Reverting to feet and miles, pounds and ounces, was going to be a shock.) Apart from zipping through the occasional high cirrus cloud, her view was unimpeded. Sunslight sparkled from azure coastal waters. Barrier islands beckoned: lush with vegetation, outlined by gleaming white sand beaches. Out to sea, a string of setting suns painted a band of low clouds in brilliant pinks and reds.
In her joy at being home, she could forget for seconds at a time that she returned without her ship and crew.
“Captain.” Wesley Wu waited till he saw he had Julia’s attention before gesturing at his bridge’s main view port. “Your world is beautiful.”
“Yes, it is,” she said, swallowing the lump in her throat.
“Long Pass City is coming up,” traffic control radioed. “You can’t miss it.
“Eight kilometers for each leg,” Julia translated units.
From the corner of an eye she caught two bridge officers grinning at the traffic controller’s description. For every person on New Terra, Earth had hundreds. Tanya had shown Julia images of arcologies each home to more people than New Terra’s capital city.
After their long voyage, the final approach was anticlimactic.
When the air-lock hatches opened, the cheers of the crowd were deafening.
And when, side by side, she and Wesley Wu exited the lock, the roar grew louder.
AFTER THE SPEECHES HAD ENDED, the parade run its course, and the concert ended with a loud brassy flourish, after most of the shore party had flicked with their official guides to homes and hotels around the globe,
Lots of family — but no grandfather.
“Mom!” Julia finally got out the word. “Save some for later.”
Mom gave one more squeeze, sighed, then let Julia go. “Sorry.” Shining eyes said she wasn’t. Dad was holding back tears, too.
“Where’s Grandpa?” Julia asked. She could imagine only one thing keeping Grandpa away: that he blamed her for Alice’s death. She
“Your grandfather was on the main reviewing stand,” Dad said. “Didn’t you see him?”
Julia shook her head. “I had the setting suns in my eyes and couldn’t make out everyone. I saw only a bunch of politicians. But it was impossible to miss that we have a new governor. What’s that about?”
“There were … changes while you were gone,” Mom said.
“Sigmund is in the new government,” Mom said, “as the minister of the defense forces.” She seemed conflicted about saying more.
“There you are.” Tanya Wu walked up briskly, sharp in her dress blues. She would be staying with Julia, and they would be touring New Terra together. “Your family?”
“Almost all of it. Everyone, this is my good friend, Tanya.”
Even as Julia made the introductions, her mind churned. Grandpa was in the government? That meant his past differences with the political establishment had been forgiven. She was very happy for him.
She could tell her grandpa
39
The illusion was all but perfect. Overhead, the image shone of the primeval sun. Lush rolling pasture, vibrant in reds, yellows, and purples, merged flawlessly into the “distance” where walls fractured by
As shall I, Baedeker thought.
“You need not go.” Nike sang not only to Baedeker and Nessus, but to the volunteers gathered to accompany them. “You should not go. The prospects for success are unfavorable.”
The melody was polite for
Baedeker reached out to brush heads in farewell, then straightened. “I thank you for your hospitality, your assistance in our preparations, and the knowledge that many remain here” — when this adventure, too, goes awry — “in further assurance of the herd’s future.”
Nike lowered his heads in respect.
Baedeker took a final look around this idyllic spot. Perhaps this place was too perfect, a trap from which only the strongest-willed might ever emerge.
A stepping disc lay at Baedeker’s hooves. Like similar discs across the Hindmost’s Refuge, it had been powered off since Nike and his staff first arrived. Baedeker leaned over to activate the device.
Apollo, one of the disturbingly few volunteers, gripped a transport controller in a mouth. Born in the Refuge, he had never ventured beyond its confining, if artfully obscured, boundary. This little bubble was the youngster’s entire
As my children must imagine New Terra is their world, Baedeker thought. He wondered if he would ever see them. With pangs of guilt, he wondered if he should. Did Elpis and Aurora even remember him?
Apollo kept probing candidate destination addresses. On the fourth try, he sang, “I have a disc that appears ready to receive.”
“I will go first,” Nessus sang at once. Others quickly made the same offer.
“I thank you all, but the duty” — and the danger — “is mine.” Baedeker stepped onto the disc —
HEADS SWIVELING, BAEDEKER LOOKED ALL AROUND. The only light came seeping under a closed door. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom he began to distinguish tarp-covered heaps.
An ear held to the door heard nothing. When he risked a low-powered flashlight beam, he saw dust coated everything but the stepping disc on which he stood. No one had visited this closet in a long time.
Baedeker stepped off the disc. With a transmitter taken from a pocket of his utility belt, he sent three short neutrino pulses deep into the mantle.
Nessus appeared almost at once, sneezing at the dust Baedeker had disturbed. Looking himself in the eyes, Nessus sang, “I remember your home as a more welcoming place.”
“I would guess you never went into the subbasement,” Baedeker replied.
Opening the door, he peered into a dimly lit, empty hallway. Its floor was dusty, too. After many years off- world, he had almost forgotten how decadent corridors were. In the Hindmost’s Residence, privacy and security
