Since the Split, as far as Holle knew, Wilson had never replaced Kelly with any other long-term partner. But he had been taking lovers from throughout the crew. He had fathered a number of kids too. All this was with the consent of the women involved, and the social engineers back in Colorado would have approved of him spreading his genes around. But then Steel Antoniadi had caught Wilson’s eye, during a dance festival. Named for the color of the walls in this stripped-bare hull, she had grown up dark, willowy, unconsciously graceful in microgravity, exotic in her tunic and tattoos, and just fourteen. Her mother, an illegal called Sue Turco, had been too intimidated by Wilson to do anything about it. But her father, Joe Antoniadi, a former Candidate, had protested to the other elders about it, especially Holle, his boss.
Wilson cut Holle short. “The hell with this, Holle. I’m not forcing the kid.”
“That’s not the point, Wilson-”
“Look at me. I’m the most powerful man on the ship. Have been for ten years. And rich, too! A credit millionaire. But there’s nothing I can buy. So what’s in it for me? I’ll tell you. Only the sweetest commodity on the ship. I’m talking about young flesh, Holle. Young, just coming ripe, and as limber as all fuck after a lifetime swimming around in zero G. That’s what’s in it for me-or so I decided, when I saw Steel doing that whirling dance in the air.”
“The mission is about the kids, Wilson,” Venus said hotly. “They aren’t just some ‘commodity’ for you to indulge in. What’s next, are you going to start raiding the school groups for bait for your henchmen? I can’t believe the boy I grew up with has turned out like this.”
Wilson just laughed. One of his buddies farted, a liquid sound.
Holle said, “Well, you’re asking for trouble, Wilson. This isn’t some feudal village. In the end you govern by consent. And you’re pushing your luck.”
Wilson glanced at Jeb and Dan, who grinned back at him. “I’ll take that on advisement. Is there anything else I can do for you ladies?”
80
August 2059
There was great excitement on the morning of the arrival of the submarine from Ark Two.
Kelly watched her fellow space travelers crowding to the raft’s edge, waiting for the sub to surface. Compared to the raft’s healthy, robust crew, with skins tanned brown and swimming muscles taut, the Seba people looked like ghosts, spectral, their limbs too long, their heads too large. Their eagerness faintly worried Kelly. They had spent most or all of their lives inside an engineered environment, and were too easily distracted from the shabby garbage raft they were going to have to live on for the rest of their lives. But then it had been Kelly herself who had interrogated Thandie Jones about Ark Two, in their very first proper conversation together.
As they waited it started to rain, just gently, the drops hissing on the ocean. The sky held the remnants of a red dawn, with a faint stink of sulfur in the air. Thandie sniffed. “Volcano weather. Rain precipitating out around ash particles…”
There was a ragged cheer as the sub broke the surface. Naked brown-skinned kids swam out to it. Kelly made out a boat-shaped streamlined hull, a conning tower with periscope and radio masts, and a bold Stars and Stripes painted on its flank. The sub drew close enough that ladders could be thrown across from raft to sub, and you could simply walk across without getting your feet wet. The raft kids scampered back and forth over the ladders carelessly, playing in the water that streamed off the sub’s hull.
A couple of the sub crew emerged, a man and a woman. They were young, maybe early twenties. They wore reasonably clean-looking blue coveralls and boots, and they had their hair cropped short, military style. Sturdy-looking but pale, they had more in common with the Seba people than the rafters, Kelly thought. They crossed the ladders to the raft easily enough. Little kids swarmed around them, plucking at their hands and trouser legs.
Thandie Jones walked up to the two of them stiffly, and Kelly followed.
The young man was about Kelly’s height, his hair blond, his eyes pale blue. He wore patches on his coverall, a US flag and a mission badge, like the astronauts’ patches Gordo Alonzo used to show the Candidates. The patch was an inverted triangle containing a pie-slice of the Earth’s cross-section, with a strip of bubbling ocean and the bold words ARK TWO plastered over a schematic sky. Kelly stared. This patch was the first piece of physical evidence she had ever seen that Ark Two, hidden from her by her father’s lies and evasions, actually existed.
“Ms. Kenzie,” the young man said.
She was staring. Disconcerted, she said, “Call me Kelly.”
“Welcome home. I can’t imagine what you’ve done, what you’ve seen.” His accent was odd to Kelly’s ears, stilted, not quite American. He seemed to be having trouble making eye contact with her. “I wish I could see your ship.”
Mike snorted. “No, you don’t. After eighteen years it’s a flying toilet; best to let it burn up.” He stuck out his hand. “Mike Wetherbee.”
“I know who you are, Dr. Wetherbee. We all read the log you transmitted down to the Ark. You’re heroes to us, all of you. It’s an honor.” She shook Mike’s hand, and Masayo’s, and then bent down to inspect Eddie, who grinned back. “And I know who you are too.”
“This is the party for the Ark,” Thandie said. “Me, Kelly, Mike, Masayo, little Eddie here. You got room for us in that tub of yours?”
“It’s not the Trieste, but we do our best.” He faced Kelly, glancing at her, looking away. “You’ve come so far, across forty light-years. But it’s another twelve kilometers to Ark Two-straight down. Are you ready?”
“Help me across that ladder and I’m all yours,” Kelly said. “You’re being very generous to us-I don’t even know your name.”
He stared at her with an odd intensity. “You don’t recognize me.”
“I’m sorry.”
His face turned red. “I’m your son. Dexter. Your first son.”
This was completely unexpected. Kelly felt as if she had been punched. Eddie squealed, and she realized she was gripping his hand too tight. She deliberately let go.
“My colleague is called Lisa Burdock.” Dexter seemed to be trying to say more. Then he turned on his heel and walked back, over the ladder to the sub.
Mike Wetherbee was grinning. “The son you abandoned for the stars. Well, well.”
“Shut your fucking mouth, Doctor.” Kelly, heavy with gravity, bewildered, realized she was in danger of collapsing, right here. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. She patted Eddie’s head, took his hand again, and stepped forward. “Who’s going to help me over that ladder?”
The rain hardened, becoming torrential.
To get inside the sub Kelly had to climb down through the conning tower into a narrow well with handholds stapled to the wall, penetrating further down into the hull than she’d expected. There was a stink of metal, electrics, gasoline and urine.
She emerged into a spherical compartment a few meters across, with a simple pilot station set before a bank of screens. Fat windows pierced the sphere’s hull, mostly looking down into murky blue water. Mesh partitions had been laid down to make a flat floor, with the volume underneath used as storage space for loose equipment and air tanks. Lisa Burdock was laying down fold-out couches. Kelly sat gratefully in one of the couches, hiding the weakness in her legs, back, neck. Dexter started handing out blankets and thick padded coats, though the sphere was hot and cramped. Eddie had to be carried down, passed from hand to hand, as the handholds were too far apart for him. But once down in the spherical chamber he seemed to brighten up.
As soon as they were all in their couches, Dexter slammed closed the hatch. With a gurgle of water filling the surface tanks, they sank immediately. Kelly had a stomach-churning sense of the drop.
The design of the sub was indeed based on that of the Trieste, a classic deep-dive vessel which had reached the ocean’s extreme depths nearly a century before. When the flood had begun, Thandie Jones had made
