Forty Thousand in Gehenna (19 page)

“You would have opposed the signing.”

“Absolutely not.” Harad sipped slowly and settled again in his chair. The window overlooked the concrete canyons of the city and the winding silver sheen of the Amity River. Outside, commerce came and went. “As it is, Alliance ships go on serving our ports. No boycott. And the longer that’s true—the less likely it becomes. So the colonies were well spent. They’ll keep the Alliance quite busy.”

“They may just lift the colonists off, you know. And if one colony should resist, we’ll have a crisis on our hands.”

“They won’t. There’ll be no untoward incident. Maybe Alliance knows they’re there. We’ll have to break that news, at least, now the treaty’s signed. They’ll take that hard, if they don’t know. They’ll be demanding records, access to files. They’ll know, of course, the files will be culled; but we’ll cooperate. That’s at the bureau level.”

“It seems to me a halfwitted move.”

“What?”

“To give up. Oh, I know the logic: hard worlds to develop; and we’ve hurried Alliance into expansion—but all things considered, maybe we should have thrown more into it. We may regret those worlds.”

“The economics of the time.”

“But not our present limits.”

Harad frowned. “I’ve looked into this. My predecessor left us a legacy. Those worlds were all hard. I’ll tell you something I’ve known since first I opened the file. The Reach colonies were all designed to fail.”

The Secretary favored him with a cold blue stare. “You’re serious.”

“Absolutely. We couldn’t afford to do it right. Not in those years. It was all going into ships. So we set them up to fail. Ecological disaster; a human population that would survive but scatter into impossible terrain. That’s what they’ll find. No mission was ever backed up. No ships were dispatched. The colonists never knew.”

“Union citizens—Union lives—”

“That was the way of it in those days. That’s why I supported the treaty. We’ve just dictated Alliance’s first colonial moves, handed them a prize that will bog them down in that direction for decades yet to come. Whatever they do hereafter will have to be in spite of what they’ve gained.”

“But the lives, Councillor. Those people waiting on ships that never came—”

“But it accomplished what it set out to do. And isn’t it, in all accounts, far cheaper than a war?”

Military Personnel:

Col. James A. Conn, governor general d. 3 CR

Capt. Ada P. Beaumont, It. governor, d. year of founding

Maj. Peter T. Gallin, personnel, d. 34 CR

M/Sgt. Ilya V. Burdette, Corps of Engineers, d. 23 CR

Cpl. Antonia M. Cole, d. 32 CR

Spec. Martin H. Andresson, d. 22 CR

Spec. Emilie Kontrin, d. 31 CR

Spec. Danton X. Norris d. 22 CR

M/Sgt. Danielle L. Emberton, tactical op., d. 22 CR

Spec. Lewiston W. Rogers, d. 22 CR

Spec. Hamil N. Masu, d. 22 CR

Spec. Grigori R. Tamilin, d. 22 CR

M/Sgt. Pavlos D. M. Bilas, maintenance, d. 34 CR

Spec. Dorothy T. Kyle, d. 40 CR

Spec. Egan I. Innis, d. 36 CR

Spec. Lucas M. White, d. 32 CR

Spec. Eron 678-4578 Miles, d. 49 CR

Spec. Upton R. Patrick, d. 38 CR

Spec. Gene T. Troyes, d. 42 CR

Spec. Tyler W. Hammett, d. 42 CR

Spec. Kelley N. Matsuo, d. 44 CR

Spec. Belle M. Rider, d. 48 CR

Spec. Vela K. James, d. 25 CR

Spec. Matthew R. Mayes, d. 29 CR

Spec. Adrian C. Potts, d. 27 CR

Spec. Vasily C. Orlov, d. 44 CR

Spec. Rinata W. Quarry, d. 39 CR

Spec. Kito A. M. Kabir, d. 43 CR

Spec. Sita Chandrus, d. 22 CR

M/Sgt. Dinah L. Sigury, communications, d. 22 CR

Spec. Yung Kim, d. 22 CR

Spec. Lee P. de Witt, d. 48 CR

M/Sgt. Thomas W. Oliver, quartermaster, d. 39 CR

Cpl. Nina N. Ferry, d. 45 CR

Pfc. Hayes Brandon, d. 48 CR

Lt. Romy T. Jones, special forces, d. 22 CR

Sgt. Jan Vandermeer, d. 22 CR

Spec. Kathryn S. Flanahan, d. 22 CR

Spec. Charles M. Ogden, d. 22 CR

M/Sgt. Zell T. Parham, security, d. 22 CR

Cpl. Quintan R. Witten, d. 22 CR

Capt. Jessica N. Sedgewick, confessor-advocate, d. 38 CR

Capt. Bethan M. Dean, surgeon, d. 46 CR

Capt. Robert T. Hamil, surgeon, d. 32 CR

Lt. Regan T. Chiles, computer services, d. 29 CR

Civilian Personnel:

Secretarial personnel: 12

Medical/surgical: 1

Medical/paramedic: 7

Mechanical maintenance: 20

Distribution and warehousing: 20

Robert H. Davies, d. 3 CR

Security: 12

Computer service: 4

Computer maintenance: 2

Librarian: 1

Agricultural specialists: 10

Harold B. Hill, d. 32

CR Geologists: 5

Meteorologist: 1

Biologists: 6

Marco X. Gutierrez, d. 39 CR

Eva K. Jenks, d. 38 CR

Jane Flanahan-Gutierrez, CR 2—CR 50

Elly Flanahan-Gutierrez, b. 23 CR—

Education: 5

Cartographer: 1

Management supervisors: 4

Biocycle engineers: 4

Construction personnel: 50

Food preparation specialists: 6

Industrial specialists: 15

Mining engineers: 2

Energy systems supervisors: 8

ADDITIONAL NONCITIZEN PERSONNEL.

“A” class: 2890

  Jin 458-9998

  Pia 86-687, d. 46 CR

    (chart)

“B” class: 12389

“M” class: 4566

“P” class: 20788

“V” class: 1278

Communication: Alliance security to
AS Ajax
“…survey and report.”

Year 58, day 259 CR

The ship came down, all long-range contact negative, and settled at the site the orbiting scan had turned up.

And Westin Lake, Alliance Forces, ordered the hatch opened on a close view of the land; on a sprawl of human-made huts, on an eerie wilderness beyond, a landscape different than the sketchy Union charts told them they should find.

Someone swore.

“It’s not right,” another said. That was more than true.

They waited two hours, expecting approach: it failed, except for a few small lizards.

But trails of smoke went up, among the trees and the huts—the smoke of evening fires.

There had been a sound like thunder, disturbing the too-close sickroom where the old man lay, amid a clutter of wornout blankets. An ariel perched on the windowsill, and another enjoyed a permanent habitation in the stack of baskets by the door. The sound stopped. “Is it raining?” Jin elder asked, stirring from that sleep that had held him neither here nor there. Pia tried to tell him something.

And he was perplexed, because Jin Younger was there too, that tall man sitting on the chest by Pia. There was silver in his son’s beard, and in Pia’s hair. When had they gotten so old?

But Pia—
his
Pia—was dead long ago. Her sibs had gone close after her; the last of his had gone this spring. All were dead, who had known the ships. None had lived so long as he—if it was life, to lie here dreaming. There was none that recalled the things he remembered. The faces confused him, not clear types such as he had known, but still, much like those he had known.

“Mark,” he called; and: “Green?” But Mark was dead and Green was lost, long ago. They told him Zed had vanished too.

“I’m here,” someone said. Jin. He recalled then, and focused on the years in the curious way things would slip into focus and go out again. His children had come back to him, at least Jin and Pia had.

“I don’t think he understands.” Pia’s voice, a whisper, across the room. “It’s no good, Jin.”

“Huh.”

“He always used to
talk
about the ships.”

“We could take him outside.”

“I don’t think he’d even know.”

Silence a moment. Darkness a moment. He felt far away.

“Is he breathing?”

“Not very strong.—Father. Do you hear? The ships have come.”

Over the fields of grain, high in blue skies, a thin splinter of silver. He knew what it was to fly. Had flown, once. It was a hot day. They might swim in the creek when they were done with harvest, with the sun heating the earth, and making the sweat run on his back.

“Father?”

Into the bright, bright sun.

Pia-now-eldest walked out into the light, grim, looked round her at the knot of hangers-on…the young, the scatter of children they had sent to Jin. “He’s gone,” she said.

Solemn faces. A handful of them, from about a hand of years to twice that. Solemn eyes.

“Go on,” Pia said, and picked up a stick. “We get first stuff.
Get
. Go to Old Jon. Go to Ben. Go wherever you like. There’s nothing for you here.”

They ran. Some cried. They knew her right arm—one of the Hillers, who seldom came into town at all, Pia Eldest—no timid towndweller they could put anything off on. She followed them with her eyes, down the row of ramshackle limestone houses, the last ragtag lot of youngers Old Jin had had. They might be kin or just strays. The old man had been readier than most to take them in. The worst stayed with Old Jin. He never hit them, and they had stolen his food until Pia found it out; and then there had been no more stealing, no.

She went inside, into the stench of the unkept house, into the presence of the dead, suddenly lacking an obligation, realizing that she had nothing more to do. Her brother Jin was going through the chest, had laid claim to the other blanket besides the one Old Jin was wrapped in. She frowned at that, stood there leaning on her stick.

“You don’t want anything?” Jin asked her. He stood up, a half a head taller. They wore their hair short, alike; wore boots of caliban hide and shirts and breeches of coarse town weave; looked like as all Old Jin and Pia’s offspring. “You can have the blanket.”

That surprised her. She shook her head, still scowling. “Don’t want anything. Got enough.”

“Go on. You fed him the last three years.”

She shrugged. “Your food too.”

“You made the trips.”

“So. No matter. Didn’t do it for that.”

“Owe you for the blanket,” her brother said.

“Collect it someday. What’s town to us? I don’t want what smells of it.”

Jin looked aside, on the small and withered form beneath the other blanket. Looked at her again. “We go?”

“I’ll wait for the burying.”

“We could take him up in the hills. There’s those would carry.”

She shook her head. “This is his place.”

“This.” Jin rolled the razor and the plastic cup into the blanket, tucked them under his arm. “Filth. Get up to the hills. Those new born-men—they’ll come here. They’ll be trouble, that’s all. Jin’s ships. He thought everything the main-campers did was all right. How could he know so much and so little?”

“I had myself a main-camper once. He said—he said the old azi had to think like Jin, that’s all.”

“Maybe they did. Anything the main-campers wanted. Only now there’s new main-campers. You remember how it was. You remember what it was, when old Gallin had the say in main-camp. That’s what it’ll be again. You mind me, Pia, you don’t wait for the burying or they’ll have you plowing fields.”