One Day on Mars

'It is all right, Kira. You have sacrificed enough,' Elise said softly to her. 'We have all lost family in this crazy struggle for freedom. But we will prevail,' she said more sternly.

'Sorry.' Kira turned her head back around and looked at Elise. 'So. Where are we going?'

'We're leaving on the TCA Barge Tangier I from Umbra Lake to rendezvous at Oort Seven Three Nine Nine Zero One with the rest of the Exodus. From there we will QMT to New Tharsis,' Elise offered very matter-of-factly.

'I see. How many can we squeeze in the belly of the Tangier I?' Kira asked as if she knew what she were talking about.

Exodus? QMT? New Tharsis? Oort Seven Three Nine Nine Zero One? Any ideas, Allison?

Exodus is from the Bible when Moses led the Jews from Egypt. Perhaps the Separatists are planning to leave the system. QMT. I never heard of it, but perhaps it has something to do with quantum membranes as standard QM sensors do. New Tharsis, wherever we are going, is named after Tharsis on Mars. Oort Seven Three Nine Nine Zero One must be a Separatist designation of some object in the Oort Cloud. I don't know any more than that, the AIC replied.

We do know one thing, now.

What is that?

We are going to Tau Ceti.

Of course! TCA Barge Tangier I. Tau Ceti Alliance Barge Tangier I. New Tharsis must be there. I hope it is a lot more inviting than the old Tharsis and we are in for a long ride. I don't see how they think the millions of the Reservation can escape the system without major resistance. Allison had an inquisitive tone added to her mindvoice.

'Oh, I guess I keep forgetting that the troops in the field really haven't been fully briefed on everything, have they? But why worry them with the details of moving nearly thirty million people from the planet all at the same time when they have to be focused on the diversion?' Elise nodded and squinted as the train passed a service center and the lighting brightened for a brief moment. 'The Tangier I can hold about a million if you really pack them in, but for a point-eight-five-light-year trip we can only accommodate about six hundred thousand or so very friendly people. It'll be difficult and trying, but New Tharsis is well worth it and the QMT is a very easy trip. I've seen New Tharsis probably fifty times. It is indeed as beautiful as it is rumored to be.'

'Most certainly worth the sacrifice then?' Kira added.

'Yes, the three-month trip to Oort rendezvous will be . . . trying for most. But our estate rooms will be less so,' Fayad said.

'Do not boast, Fayad. We will share our fortunate life with those less so.' Elise scolded her Prime Husband. It was clear to Kira who wore the pants in that family, but again the intel briefings back at her CIA training had shown her that the Separatists were matriarchal. She was really beginning to understand how matriarchal the culture actually was.

'Estate room?' Kira asked, and reshuffled her weight slowly trying not to wake the child lying against her. Lela grunted and moved only slightly. The lazy AI Kitty raised its head and looked at Kira as if to complain about the movement and then went right back to sleep.

'Yes. My aunt owns Tangier I. It is a nice ship as far as barges go,' Elise said nonchalantly, and then looked as if she would add something more but decided against it.

Kira?

Yes, Allison?

How could she have seen Tau Ceti fifty times? At best military speeds we are limited to about a light-year per month. Tau Ceti is nearly twelve light-years away. A round-trip would take two years. I doubt Elise is over a hundred years old. She looks too full-blooded Martian to be that old yet. Oh, and add the trips to this Oort Cloud destination makes another twenty-five or more years. That puts her to at least one hundred and twenty-five if she started traveling when she was an infant. It doesn't add up. The oldest human is only three hundred and seventeen and an Earthling, the AIC commented.

I was doing the math in my head and reached the same conclusion. But Elise doesn't seem the type to lie or exaggerate. This is odd. Maybe we're not going to Tau Ceti?

I don't know. Tau Ceti seems like the solution Occam's razor would suggest.

Then that means the Separatists are far more technologically advanced than the rest of the human race . . . following Occam's razor, of course.

Yes, it does. Allison was as confused as her human counterpart but logic was logic and the answers that were logical didn't make any sense. Allison realized that that little fact alone was creating a paradox in her logic process. They needed more data.

Kira sat motionless and remembered she needed to respond to Elise verbally.

'I've only been as far as Luna City once and to the raids in Triton. Both times in asteroid mining haulers hidden away inside ore containers. I've never even seen an interstellar barge before.' Ignorance was always a good cover tactic. The sudden urge to yawn overcame her and Kira squinted and shook her head. 'Forgive me. The day has been longer than I had realized.' Long indeed. The radiation meds were wearing on her like the flu. Also, she had been flung at high speeds from a supercarrier in the midst of a major air battle, flown through high g-force maneuvers in a harrowing dogfight, nearly shot down on several occasions by both SAMs and Seppy aircraft— Gomers, as Lieutenant Commander Boland had called them—and ejected from an Ares fighter at high velocity at about the same time a nuclear bomb was detonated only a few tens of kilometers from her. And that was just the start of her day. Her gliderchute ride, the radiation, the long bounce across the foothills until she found any survivors of the nuclear attack, and then the radiation shower all made for a long day. Kira was pretty sure that her day was just a sign of harder days to come.

'Yes. Close your eyes for now. We have at least thirty minutes to Umbra. We will have plenty of time to talk further.' Elise bowed her head slowly and then turned back to Fayad, who had already dozed off. His head leaned against the window and his mouth was open as he snored and drooled down his chin. Elise shook her head in