a friend of Raymond’s?”
I nodded, wondering if Ray Freeman had ever really had a friend.
The old man turned back to Freeman. “How could anybody destroy the Broadcast Network?” It was a fair question. In U.A. society, the Broadcast Network was a given as constant as sunlight and water. No one, with the exception of Rear Admiral Thomas Halverson, had ever stopped to consider its fragile nature.
“There was a war. Some of the arms declared independence,” Freeman said. His father should have known this. Of course his father would have known this. It was the biggest news in history. And yet, looking at the old man’s surprised expression, it became clear that he had not known about the war.
“A civil war?” the old man asked.
“It’s a civil war if you lose,” Freeman said. “It’s a revolution when you win.”
“They won?” A younger man stepped forward. This man was far shorter than Freeman and not as broad along the chest and shoulders. He had a wiry build, but he looked athletic.
“They destroyed the Mars broadcast station,” I said. “Without the Mars discs, the entire system shut down.”
“For how long?” the old man asked, turning back to Ray. “How long before they fix the broadcast station?”
“They won’t fix it,” Freeman said.
“Of course they’ll fix it,” the younger man said. “They’ll send over the fleet …”
“Earth doesn’t have a fleet,” Ray said. “The Earth Fleet was defeated, and they can’t send ships from other fleets without the discs.”
The older Freeman stood still as a statue, his gaze boring into his son’s eyes and then mine. “Man has finally turned his back on us,” he mumbled. Then louder, he added, “God has cleared the way for us to stay in this promised land.”
There were 113 people living on Delphi. I know the exact number because the entire population, or perhaps I should say
There were two women with infants in the congregation. One woman threw a blanket over her shoulder and nursed her child. You could hear it sucking when the conversations lulled. The other woman cradled a sleeping baby in her arms, rocking it softly as she stood in the back of the meetinghouse. I noted the tenderness with which she treated the child and envied it. Having grown up in U.A. Orphanage #553 with other clones, I had never seen tenderness of this kind.
The people of Delphi attended this meeting as families. Husbands and wives sat together with their children. Near as I could figure, there were eighteen extended families. The whole of them only filled the first four rows of the meetinghouse. For the most part, the next twenty rows sat empty—an ambition unfulfilled.
“My son says that we are in danger,” Archie Freeman began the meeting with those words. He stood at his pulpit as austere and grave as any man I had ever seen. He had washed and changed his clothes. He wore a black suit, white shirt and black necktie. He dressed like a businessman.
Now that he had washed up, the color of Archie Freeman’s face was almost onyx. His skin had the texture of parched leather, his reward for fifty years of trying to start colonies on uninhabitable planets. Having finally landed on a productive planet with plenty of water and healthy soil, he did not want to leave.
Archie was bald at the top, with a very short layer of gray-white hair that looked like a macrame cowl. His eyes were bloodshot from his day out in the sun.
“Raymond, come up and speak your piece,” the elder Freeman said.
Ray, who had been sitting with a woman near the back, stood and walked to the front of the chapel. No one reached out to shake his hand or pat his back. Seeing the reception these people gave him, you might have thought he had never lived among these people. But he must have lived with the people before they moved to Little Man. He was their 114 th citizen. He probably knew every one of them by name.
Archie Freeman did not step away from the pulpit as his son joined him on the stand. The two men stood a few feet from each other. Ray, as I have mentioned before, stood at least seven feet tall. His father appeared to be three or four inches shorter than him, and a lot thinner.
“Tell them what you told me, son,” Archie Freeman said in his handsome baritone.
“There was a war,” Freeman said. “Four of the arms wanted to leave the Unified Authority. They had a fleet of self-broadcasting battleships. They attacked Earth and defeated the Earth Fleet.” Here he paused for just a moment. “And they destroyed the Mars broadcast station. Without the Broadcast Network, Navy ships cannot travel between systems. The ship that came here a few days ago is stuck out here, too. It will be back.”
Until that last sentence, the room remained silent. When Freeman told them that the fighter carrier would be back, the people started talking among themselves.
“How can you know that?” an old man on the first row yelled. It sounded like a challenge.
“It takes four to five days for a carrier to fly here from the discs,” Freeman said. “The one that came here didn’t have enough time to reach them before they went dark.”
I heard shouting and crying. I saw men yelling at each other, then turning and yelling at the women beside them, and I realized that these people had just been told that their world was doomed.
Archie Freeman put up his hand to calm the crowd, but the commotion continued. “Raymond and his friend have offered to move us to another planet.”
That last sentence quieted the crowd.
I had this strange feeling, like I was intruding on a family matter. I was an outsider. Hell, Ray was an outsider, and he was born and raised among these people. They had something special, something I could never have. Looking around the congregation, I knew that even if I moved in among these people, I would never be one of them. They were family …and I was a clone. I took one last look at Ray standing tall, mute and confused, and maybe even intimidated, on that stand. Then I quietly got up and left the meeting.
It was early evening. The sun had set but the sky was bright. All the blue had faded from the sky. The horizon showed orange and red, and the sky above me was white. The temperature had dropped to a comfortable seventy degrees. Little Man was always a hospitable planet. It was the inhabitants that worried me.
A soft breeze blew in from the fields, carrying the scent of freshly turned soil and fertilizer. I stood and stared at the ground with its rows and furrows. Beyond the fields, a red and green forest stretched out as far as a man could see.
“It looks so pretty at night,” a woman said. “I almost forget all the sweat and hard work that goes into it.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said, turning back. The woman walked in my direction. She had brown skin. It was the same color as Ray Freeman’s skin, but more tanned. Her skin was parched, but not as badly as Archie’s.
“You’re not going to stay for the meeting?” I asked.
“They don’t care what I have to say any more than they care what Ray has to say. We’re pariahs, and decision-making is a job for God’s elect.” She wore a long-sleeved white blouse and her plain gray skirt went all the way to her feet. These must have been her church clothes. They looked clean and pressed. “I’m Ray’s sister, Marianne.” With this, she put out her had for me to shake.
“Wayson Harris,” I said, shaking her hand.
Her palm and fingers were hard and rough, far rougher than mine. I had climbed ropes and dug trenches in school, but the life of a Marine is mostly spent in combat armor. This woman had spent her days plowing and digging with tools, not equipment. Her palms were calluses.
She had broad, manly shoulders, and her wrists were as thick as mine. She stood only an inch shorter than me. Her lips and skin were almost the exact same color. Her hair was black and long. It hung down to her waist. She was elegant and strong, and I thought that in the proper setting, dressed in soft clothes with her hair done up, she might be beautiful. In another world, where she was perfumed and pampered, she might be exquisite.
“Why are you and Ray outcasts?” I asked.
“Raymond couldn’t stand living in a religious colony. He never believed in Jesus, and he and Archie hated each other. When Raymond was old enough, he caught a ride on a supply ship and got as far away as he could. I think Archie was glad when he left.” I noted that she called her father Archie, as if he were a friend or an acquaintance.
